


Blood and Straw

by HopeCoppice



Series: Blood and Straw [1]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Aziraphale Has a Penis (Good Omens), Aziraphale Has a Vulva (Good Omens), Aziraphale and Crowley Through The Ages (Good Omens), Crowley Has A Vulva (Good Omens), Crowley Has a Penis (Good Omens), F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Gabriel is a penis, Gabriel is still a penis, Genderfluid Crowley (Good Omens), Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Childbirth, M/M, Other, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Reluctant Surrender of Child, Since you're all worried, Smut, Tags Are Hard, Unexpected Baby, Various Efforts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-24
Updated: 2020-03-20
Packaged: 2021-02-27 20:36:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 30
Words: 37,856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22881865
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HopeCoppice/pseuds/HopeCoppice
Summary: A single night can change the course of history... and sometimes there are no good options.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Series: Blood and Straw [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1669183
Comments: 343
Kudos: 269





	1. Golgotha, 33AD

**Author's Note:**

> This is a bit of smut, a lot of angst, and (hopefully) a satisfying ending. I've very nearly finished writing it (it hijacked my brain a bit), so it should go up fairly quickly.
> 
> Fair (spoilery) warning: this is not a kidfic, but it does deal with an unexpected child and a reluctant adoption, so if that's the sort of thing you won't enjoy reading, this is your opportunity to get out. That said, the first chapter is just smut. Enjoy!

**Golgotha, 33 AD**

The door has barely closed on the last room at the inn before the scrabbling at clothes begins.

Watching young men die slowly and painfully before their time has a strange way of making witnesses want, more than anything, to feel alive, and Aziraphale and Crowley are no exceptions. Crowley tosses her veil away as Aziraphale fumbles his way out of his coat, ripping it in his haste before turning to slam the demon up against the door. He falters, for a moment, afraid that he's hurting her, afraid that he's demanding too much, but Crowley only draws in a hasty breath and urges him on.

"No, go on, that was bloody hot for a moment there-"

He stops her mouth with a kiss he's longed to give her for centuries, now, and she wraps her arms around him with a moan. He feels the vibration of it on his own tongue, sending sparks down his spine and leaving him breathless. It takes longer than it should to make his brain cooperate, to make himself stop and draw back, hands fisted in her dress.

"Crowley- can I-"

"You'd better," she hisses, so he lifts the hem and pulls it over her head in one urgent movement. His brain screeches to a halt as he takes in the slim, pale line of her body, completely bare in front of him. She is beautiful, from the glorious red waves atop her head to the shimmer of scales just visible at her heels, and every freckle in between makes him want to kiss it. He tries to begin that very task, but she hauls him back towards her and kisses him again.

"You're overdressed," she growls between kisses, "and behind the times. Best just get it all off, really."

"Get _you_ all off-" he grumbles, as she snatches his turban from his head, and she smiles in what seems to be genuine delight.

"That's the spirit, angel." Then his robes join hers on the floor, her body pressing against his, and he knows she can feel how much he wants her.

"Crowley-"

"The things I want to do to you," she breathes, her lips brushing his ear, "but you're so ready for me, aren't you?"

"Yes," he admits, "are- are you?"

"Oh yes. Feel." Her hand guides his between her legs and he's surprised by the wet heat he finds there. His fingers move without conscious thought, setting Crowley shivering.

"Sorry, are-?"

"Bed," she snaps, and shoves him backwards towards it.

It's little more than a pallet of straw with a few rough woollen blankets laid over it, but it feels more luxurious than any emperor's silks when Crowley sits beside him on it. For the first time since they entered the room, she looks a little nervous, and Aziraphale reaches out to run a hand through her hair in reassurance.

"What's wrong, my dear?"

"It can't mean anything," she tells him, and he shakes his head.

"It can't _not_."

"Angel-"

"If you don't want to- if you're having second thoughts-"

"I'm not. It's just." She ducks her head and peers up at him through her eyelashes. "Demons don't _want_ gentle." But everything in her posture and expression says _I do._

"Well, angels sometimes do," he tells her, with a little nod of acknowledgement, "if you can bear it."

"I can suffer it, I suppose." And there's that smile again, and when he runs a hand up from her waist to cup the very slight mound of a breast, she goes all but boneless in his arms. "Just- hurry-"

Aziraphale is fairly certain that he ought to be taking his time, savouring each moment, but Crowley urges his hand downwards and he can't seem to help himself, pressing gently until she is clawing at his back and begging for more. Well. She's not strictly begging so much as making dire threats if he doesn't get inside her _right now, angel,_ but her tone of voice is pleading all the same. They take a moment to align their bodies, and then all at once they are joined. He sinks slowly into her and it feels like losing himself, like he's one voice swallowed up in a glorious harmony, and he hopes they never disentangle themselves. He wants to stay caught up in Crowley forever.

He finally has his adversary pinned beneath him, writhing helplessly and clutching at any part of him she can, and he wouldn't have wanted it any other way. Eventually, Crowley tires of his steady pace - she goes too fast for him, she always has, but this seems like the perfect occasion to try to keep up - and rolls them over so she can straddle him, riding him at her own speed. She seems to know what she's doing, and Aziraphale surrenders happily to her tender mercies.

She makes the most utterly sinful noise he's ever heard as her body tightens around him, and he thrusts up into her once, twice more before he cries out with his own climax. He barely has the wits about him to roll them onto their sides, to gently disengage their bodies even as Crowley whimpers at the loss. He kisses her neck in apology, and closes his eyes for just a moment.

When he wakes, Crowley is still beside him, her arms wrapped as tightly around him as his are around her. She opens one eye and catches his fond gaze.

"'M a snake. What's your excuse?"

"Oh, I see. You're constricting me. How fiendish of you."

"'Zactly. Glad we understand each other." She sighs against his shoulder. "All sssticky now."

"Sorry." He snaps his fingers to clean them both up, but the miracle seems to break the more mundane spell they've been under. Crowley reluctantly sits up, leaning back in to press a final kiss to his lips before reaching for her dress.

He wants to call out to her, to ask her to come back to bed, to never leave - but that would be beyond foolishness. This can never happen again; it should never have happened at all.

"I'm in town for a few more days," he tells her, as he gets up and dons his own clothing, but she shakes her head.

"I should be on my way already."

"And everything- we'll go on as usual?"

"Just like usual, angel. Like this never happened."

She wrenches the door open and leaves, still adjusting her veil. Aziraphale sits back down and stares stupidly into space, wondering how he's ever supposed to go back to being a single voice again.

 _You're part of the Heavenly Host,_ he reminds himself, _of a vast choir._

He feels very lonely, all the same.


	2. Anathoth, 34 AD

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaand here we go...

**Anathoth, 34 AD**

Crowley usually meets him when he asks. He's put it off for as long as he can - since their impulsive night together in Golgotha - but he really needs to know if Crowley is responsible for some of the ideas these new _Christians_ are spreading around. He doesn't think so - the more worrying rules aren't Crowley's style at all - but he'd be happier knowing for sure. 

It's definitely not just a flimsy excuse to see his friend again.

Regardless of the reason for the meeting, it never occurs to him that Crowley might not turn up until Crowley doesn't turn up. She can't have been discorporated, or Aziraphale would have heard about it; it's happened before, on several occasions, and Aziraphale always gets an approving visit from Gabriel, no matter how far away from the actual scene of the incident Aziraphale might be. So she's alive, and she's avoiding him, or maybe she's busy. Maybe she's in trouble, though. He ought to at least have a look.

It takes him a few hours to be able to focus on following his faint sense of Crowley. A quick miracle takes him to Jerusalem before he begins following the faint trace of infernal energy towards Damascus.

He's barely outside the city gates when the trail leads him off the main road; he tracks Crowley by her footprints across a bare field as much as by her demonic essence. Several more fields and a rough dirt path later, he comes across a little village, and somewhere in it is his demon. _A_ demon. _Crowley._

When Aziraphale finds her, she's hunched in the corner of a stable, trying to stifle her sobs.

"Crowley?" There's blood; oh, Her, there's blood on the straw around her. "What's happened?"

Crowley claps a hand tightly over her mouth, silencing her whimpers - but something else whimpers in response.

"Crowley, what-?"

"Just me, it's just me, I'm, er, hurt, that's- _don't!"_ The last word is a yelp as Aziraphale turns in the direction of the noise - which, whatever she might say, was _not_ Crowley. The demon is half-frantic, throwing herself between him and the feed trough that seems to be the source of the soft snuffling noise he can now hear. " _Angel,_ you're being rude now, don't you want to make sure I'm all right?"

He _does;_ Crowley is swaying alarmingly, as if it's cost her all her energy to put herself in his path, and the tears in her eyes are surely more important than whatever little creature may have got into the manger. He reaches out to steady her, looking for obvious injuries and finding none - and that's when the thin, unmistakable wail rends the air.

He's surprised; Crowley, he notices, is not. She just closes her eyes in resignation and waits for him to push past her. He doesn't, still struggling to catch up with what's happening.

"You- you stole a child?"

It's not entirely unbelievable; Crowley has stolen children away from abusive homes before. Aziraphale pretends he doesn't know - she never keeps them, and she's never been hurt in the process. But the blood in the straw is Crowley's, he knows it without knowing _how_ he knows it, and the baby…

He stumbles forward and stares into the manger, at the baby that can only be hours old at most. Crowley hasn't stolen this child; she cannot steal what is her own.

"It's yours." The realisation is swiftly followed by another. "It's an _angel_."

"Of course it is," Crowley grumbles, "same original stock."

"But- _pure_ angel- Crowley, is this child-?"

But a soft _thud_ cuts off that line of questioning; he tears his eyes away from the baby to find Crowley sprawled in the straw at his feet.

He casts a general sense of peace in the child's direction and drops to Crowley's side, focusing his power into healing her. If he doesn't think about her being a demon, Heaven won't notice. He targets his miracle on a poor, overwhelmed new mother who's just given birth, alone and unaided, and is now so desperately weak.

When Crowley opens her eyes, Aziraphale has her head in his lap and is stroking her hair. His other hand is draped over the side of the manger, where a tiny hand has his finger in a vice-like grip.

"Ours," she murmurs weakly, and then, "I don't expect you to forgive me."

"No, well, I am a bit cross." He's still stroking her hair, so he doesn't expect her to take him seriously, but it soon becomes clear that's a mistake as she tenses. "Oh, my dear, no. Only that you were alone. Only that- I was so frightened when I found you, and then when you collapsed-"

"Thought I'd left you holding the baby?"

"I thought you'd _hurt_ yourself. Discorporated, even, I thought- You must know I like having you around."

"Going nowhere, angel. Can't, at least for a little while. Feel like my insides might fall out if I try. Is the baby-?"

"Just fine. Would you like me to pass them to you?"

"No, I'm- they cry whenever I go near them." She scoffs. "Hereditary enemy to my own child, wonderful."

"I'm sure that's not-"

"No, it's- it's better they don't get attached. I just- well, I should have realised they wouldn't be like me."

"Why-?" Aziraphale gently shifts until Crowley has to sit up, trying to get her to make eye contact. "Why is it better they don't get attached?"

"I can't take a baby angel anywhere near Hell, Satan knows what they'd do with them - and I can't outrun them for long."

"Then what do you plan to do?"

Crowley is silent, and Aziraphale realises she doesn't have a plan. Crowley _always_ has a plan, but she doesn't now. That only leaves Aziraphale, with his limited ability to think outside the box; he will have to get better at it, and fast.

"What about Heaven?"

"Oh, yeah, they'd love it if I pitched up on the doorstep."

"What if… well, what if I said it was mine?"

"It _is_ yours, angel," Crowley reminds him, as if that's not the only thing that gives this plan the slightest chance of working.

"Yes. But if they think it's _just_ mine… I could say it just… appeared unexpectedly. Ineffably. Out of the blue. The child _is_ an angel, after all."

"You want me to let Heaven raise my child."

"I want you to let _me_ raise them."

"They'll make them hate me."

"They couldn't make _me_ hate you. It's the only way you can both be safe, Crowley."

Crowley tugs at her hair in anguish; watching her, Aziraphale realises just how exhausted she looks. She has been through so much today, and it's only getting worse.

"What if they take them from you?" It's a chilling thought. "You're a field agent. What if they insist they're raised in Heaven and send you back?"

"Then… I'll visit. Often. They can't deny me that."

"It's Heaven, angel. They do as they like."

"Well, do you have any better ideas?" She must; his wonderful, intelligent adversary always has an idea. "Or one single better idea?"

Crowley sighs, defeated, and he realises they have no choice.

"You'd better take them now. They'll expect you to report this… miracle… straight away."

"But Crowley- don't you want to say goodbye?"

She hesitates for a long moment, taking her time in standing, then approaches the manger as if she fears it might explode. The baby begins to wail as she approaches, perhaps frightened by the aura of grief emanating from her, easily perceptible to angels - what is grief, after all, but love in ruins? - but Crowley perseveres, leaning down to brush a kiss over her baby's forehead. Then she turns away, wiping angrily at her cheeks.

"I need an alibi, somewhere far from here. But you'll tell me what happens. _Whatever_ happens."

"Of course I will, dear. Where shall I meet you?"

"Oh, Alexandria, I suppose. I have to-" She hurries past him, and he barely has the chance to bid her a safe journey before she's gone, hurrying from the stable. 

Aziraphale wishes he could follow her, but she's right. He has to report this unexpected birth _now._ He puts it off for a few minutes, cleaning the stable with miracles to remove all traces of Crowley, and then he lifts the black-swaddled baby into his arms.

"I want you to know," he tells them, not knowing why he's whispering, "that I love you. And so does she. And I'll stay close, if I can. But if not- well, I hope She will look after you for me." He tries his best to radiate peace and calm, and the child sleeps on as he finally opens a prayer channel to his supervisor.

Gabriel appears, looking irritated, and stares at his surroundings in disgust.

"Why have you called me to this filthy place, Aziraphale?"

"I- er- there's been an unexpected miracle, you see. This- this child."

"What concern is that of Heaven's?"

"They're an angel. And they're mine, they were given to me."

"Given to you? Who by? Her?"

Aziraphale smiles weakly. "Who else could bestow such a gift?"

Gabriel frowns at him.

"And it's a full angel? Not… half-human, or anything?"

"No, 100% angelic stock." He holds the baby out for Gabriel to inspect, and the archangel takes a step backwards. A good sign, perhaps. "I thought I should inform you, if I'm to raise the child-"

"No, no, there's no need for that, Aziraphale. There are plenty of angels in Heaven perfectly suited to the task."

"But- this baby is mine, they were given to me, I thought-"

"You are Heaven's Earthly representative, and Earth is where things are born," Gabriel tells him firmly, "but Heaven is the only proper place for a brand new angel. That's obviously Her plan. You, however, have a job to do a little way up the road, so hand the baby over and you can put it out of your mind."

Aziraphale doesn't know what to say; he can't think of any way to change Gabriel's mind without endangering himself _and_ the child. He cannot endanger them.

"Perhaps I could visit sometimes?" He offers, as Gabriel awkwardly takes the baby into his arms. 

"I'm sure your paths will cross at some point, but there's no need to concern yourself. And Aziraphale, don't reveal the child's existence to anybody."

"Nobody will hear about it from me," he agrees. Crowley, after all, already knows. 

Gabriel claps him on the back - too hard - and then vanishes with the baby. Aziraphale allows himself five minutes of grief, hunched in the corner of a stable, trying to stifle his sobs, before setting out towards Damascus. Now, more than ever, he has to be the perfect angel.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Biblical References: Wikipedia reckons this is the year of St Paul's conversion on the way to Damascus. Anathoth is mentioned in the bible somewhere but I don't know if it has a specific location; I parked it roughly where the Palestinian town of Anata is now.


	3. Alexandria, 34 AD

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This isn't going to make anyone happy, I'm afraid. You're going to have to trust me for a little while. Enjoy anyway!

**Alexandria, 34 AD**

He finds Crowley exactly where he expects to; she knows his steps always take him to the library first, and she seems to be arranging and rearranging the same three scrolls in the largest of its rooms, clearly visible from two different entrances. She has placed herself there to be found, no doubt anxious for news.

Aziraphale has not come straight to Alexandria, even after the completion of his task on the road to Damascus; he tells himself it's because he didn't want to lead anyone to Crowley, if he was being watched, but in truth he's afraid of her reaction to his news. He dreads seeing the look on her face when he tells her he failed to protect her child. Their child.

She turns, sensing the angelic presence behind her, and it's obvious from a glance that he is alone. He watches her face fall, sees her hurriedly turn back to the shelves, and knows that she is heartbroken. It's the work of moments to reach her side, pretending to peruse the available scrolls. Once, there had been so many more, endless possibilities for ideas and cooperation and creation stretching as far as the eye could see. Now, there is only what has been saved or rebuilt from the ashes. He hopes his relationship with Crowley can be restored, too, if only in part.

"Do you have rooms?"

"A house," she murmurs, "east of here."

"Let's go there," he suggests, "we should talk privately."

For a moment, it looks as though she might refuse, but then she nods.

"Follow me."

Aziraphale has barely crossed the threshold before Crowley turns on him.

"Where are they?"

"Heaven," he tells her simply, "I did try-" But Crowley's face crumples under the weight of her grief and she turns away to hide it.

"Did they suspect-?"

"No. No, I'm confident they'll treat them well."

"Oh, well, if you're _confident-"_ Her voice trembles, and Aziraphale moves without thinking to pull her into a hug. For a moment, she stiffens, and he's certain she'll push him away, but then she begins to shake with sobs, burying her face against his shoulder as if that will disguise what she perceives as her weakness. He holds her close, rubs her back, and does his best to keep his own emotions locked away inside. He has to be strong for Crowley, and he cannot weep over Heaven's will. If he Falls now, they will lose all hope of ever seeing their child again.

"Is there anything- what can I do to help you, my dear?" he asks, as her sobbing begins to subside. 

Crowley looks up at him and sighs. "Alcohol. Quite extraordinary amounts of alcohol."

They drink for hours, the pair of them, and it's not until they're both very drunk that Aziraphale dares to raise the subject again.

"I really am sorry, Crowley. They couldn't have been safe-"

"Nah, 's like- like Moses. Isn’t it? You remember Moses, don’t you?”

“Yes, Crowley, I remember.”

“Wasn’t safe for Jochebed to have him. Had to give him to an Egyptian. All… all worked out all right in the end, didn’t it?”

“Well.” Aziraphale remembers sitting with Jochebed as she worried about her son, cried over him, throughout the years - and she’d been able to see him grow up. “Yes, I suppose it did-”

“Well then. Did the right thing. Didn’t we?”

“Yes,” Aziraphale assures her, because he still believes that much to be true, even if it hurts. “Yes, I think we did.”

“Good. Great. No need to be miserable, then, eh?” And Crowley knocks back another cup of wine.

Aziraphale reaches out to tuck a loose strand of hair behind Crowley’s ear, enamoured of the way the firelight catches her hair and eyes, and the demon _flinches_.

“Don’t.”

“I’m sorry-”

“ _Don’t_ , angel. I can’t do it again.”

“Can’t-?”

“Get out. You have to go. Get out!” It’s such an abrupt change, Aziraphale doesn’t know how to react at first - and then the fear in Crowley’s eyes spurs him into action.

“I’m going, I’m-” They’re both stone-cold sober, all of a sudden, and Crowley still looks like a cornered animal, furious and frightened. All Aziraphale can do is turn and flee.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Biblical References: see previous endnotes.  
> Historical References: The Library of Alexandria burned down before this, but continued to operate for some time in a reduced capacity.


	4. Rome, 41 AD

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not sure if this one helps, and I'm sorry it's short!

**Rome, 41 AD**

Aziraphale is enjoying a nice drink when Crowley appears, scowling and obviously fed up. At first, he doesn’t know how the demon will react to his greeting, but it seems Crowley has thawed somewhat since the last time they met. He accepts an invitation to Petronius’ for oysters, at any rate.

“You’ve been busy, then, my dear,” Aziraphale comments, as Crowley concludes a tale about his exploits over the last few years, and the demon nods.

“No rest for the wicked, angel.” His gaze drops to the table between them and he lowers his voice. “Have you heard anything?” It doesn’t take a genius to know what he’s talking about.

“Nothing. I’m sorry.” Crowley’s whole body sags a bit, and Aziraphale hurries on. “It’s good news, really. I’d have heard if they were in any trouble.”

“Would you?” But Crowley holds his hands up in surrender as soon as he's said it, no doubt aware that he's hit a raw nerve. “Sorry. It’s just-”

“Yes. It is,” Aziraphale agrees. “Can I ask you something, Crowley? About… about Anathoth?”

“Yeah, I suppose.”

“Why a stable?”

“It was there,” Crowley shrugs, then takes a swig of his wine. “I panicked. It worked for Mary, didn’t it?”

“Yes, my dear. Very resourceful of you.”

“Any more questions, angel?”

_ What happened in Alexandria?  _ Aziraphale wants to ask, but he shakes his head and lets the matter drop instead.

“Just one. Whose round is it?” Regardless of their past, it’s good to have his friend back.


	5. Varanasi, 325 AD

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This might in fact make it worse again. Hang in there?

**Varanasi, 325 AD**

Crowley crashes in on him unexpectedly just as he's eating his dinner one evening. It's unexpected not only because they haven't made plans, but also because Crowley is supposed to be starting a few fights at the Council of Nicaea before Aziraphale pops over there and makes a show of running him off. It's not a case of helping each other out so much as planning for the optimum spectacle; Aziraphale could use a big flashy win to impress the archangels, who still aren't entirely convinced that he should be _consuming gross matter_ , and it's not as if there aren't going to be terrible arguments at a gathering like that anyway. Crowley has agreed that Aziraphale can take his time to finish the book he's been reading - a fascinating tome by Vātsyāyana - then head over and give him an excuse to leave before anyone starts _consecrating_ things.

The other unexpected thing about Crowley's appearance in the courtyard is that he's lightly singed and seems on the verge of collapse. Aziraphale picks up his bowl with one hand, gets his other arm around Crowley's waist, and helps him into the house without a word.

Once he's safely perched on Aziraphale's bed, though, it's another story.

"Crowley, what happened? Are you hurt? What can I do?" Crowley just scrunches his eyes shut and takes his hand away from where it's been clutching his side. Fortunately, his cry of pain covers Aziraphale's horrified gasp. He pulls himself together quickly, focusing on the facts. "A human blade?" The alternative doesn't bear thinking about; Crowley nods, and Aziraphale's shoulders slump in relief. "May I heal you, Crowley?"

"Please-"

It's the work of moments, Crowley hissing violently through gritted teeth as Aziraphale presses his fingers to the wound. It's deep; if Crowley hadn't found him, he probably would have been discorporated. Possibly, as his adversary, Aziraphale should have let it happen.

He manages to get Crowley to finish the bowl of food he'd been enjoying, and nags him until he reclines on the bed. Honestly, he doesn't expect him to do either of those things - running from the scene of his perceived weakness is more the demon's style - but it seems as though Crowley has something he wants to say. Aziraphale knows better than to press; he's better off asking his own questions and hoping the demon will eventually tell him what's on his mind.

"What on earth happened, Crowley?"

"Council must have been a bigger deal than we thought." Crowley is aiming for nonchalant and - unusually - missing. "Some of your lot beat you to it, went in for the smite."

"You've fought off angels before," Aziraphale points out. Crowley has even discorporated a few angels in self-defence, over the four millennia of his existence, and while Aziraphale doesn't necessarily _approve_ , he understands. If he was attacked by demons, after all, he would do the same thing.

"Yeah, well. I froze. I didn't recognise them, except that creepy git from Sodom. And then it all started getting a bit too holy for comfort, so I ran, and one of the humans thought he'd try to score some points Upstairs - you can see his logic, killing whatever the angels are chasing, that ought to be worth a free ticket to Heaven, right?”

“Crowley,” Aziraphale interrupts sharply, “you’re babbling. What aren’t you telling me?”

Crowley falters for a moment, then shrugs. “Nothing, angel. Must be the blood loss.”

“Well. Not that I’m not flattered, but why did you come to _me?_ We’re supposed to be-”

“Eternal enemies, yeah, I know. But _you’ve_ never tried to discorporate me. And I was already thinking about you, and I suppose- I just- you were the only person I could think to come to.”

“Thinking about me?” He has to pause for a moment, to fight the blush threatening to warm his cheeks. “Why’s that?”

“Oh. Well. Er.” Crowley sits up slowly, peers at him over the top of his dark glasses. “Not- not _you_ , as such. More… er… Anathoth.”

For a few seconds, all he can think is _oh._ There’s a little pang in his heart at the thought of Anathoth - of the child born and lost there - but the fact that Crowley wasn’t really thinking about _him_ is also more of a disappointment than he’d like to admit. It’s foolish; there’s no reason Crowley _should_ have been thinking about him, just because Aziraphale thinks of _him_ often. And then his brain catches up. Why, in the middle of a fight for his continued existence, would Crowley be thinking about their child? Why, in the middle of a confrontation with _angels_ -?

“Crowley- the angels who attacked you- it wasn’t-? You didn’t-?”

“Well, I don’t know, do I?” Crowley snarls. “How could I ever _know?”_

And Aziraphale sees it, sees the terrible truth in the twist of Crowley’s body and the set of his jaw. _He can never know. He stares across the battlefield and he never knows if his own child is staring back at him._

“You couldn’t fight them.”

“I couldn’t, I didn’t- I didn’t know.”

“Surely you’d sense something-”

“You’re up and down to Heaven all the time, have _you_ found them?”

“No.” He’s only been called Upstairs twice since the birth, and he’d reached out as far as he could with every celestial sense he had, but he’d found nothing. Just angels, uniform and unknowable. “No, I haven’t.”

“Well, I didn’t- I mean, I didn’t look at any of them and think _oh, it’s you_ \- but I didn’t know. They could have been there. I didn’t recognise them from Before.”

“Oh, Crowley.” The demon stiffens; apparently Aziraphale’s tone is too affectionate. He tries to rein it back in, to keep things businesslike. “You have to stay away from angels.”

“Really? I hadn’t thought of that.” The sarcasm bites deeper than Crowley’s fangs ever could. “You’re right, my whole existence would be so much easier if I just _started avoiding_ _angels!”_

“Well, _really_ , dear. Is it really me that you’re angry with?”

It’s a rhetorical question, but Crowley turns his head to look at him and Aziraphale’s heart clenches unpleasantly.

“...Oh. Is it?”

“Let me get back to you on that, angel.” But he presses a kiss to Aziraphale’s temple as he passes on his way to the door, leaving the angel and his thoughts in turmoil.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Historical References: Aziraphale is reading the Kama Sutra.


	6. Durnovaria, 537 AD

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hmm. Does this make things any better? I like this chapter, at any rate, so I hope you'll enjoy it too.

**Durnovaria, 537 AD**

Aziraphale pretends he doesn't know that the Black Knight is Crowley - really, who else could be responsible for causing so much low-level chaos? - and strides boldly into his territory to almost get himself killed. If Crowley is still angry with him, he supposes he'll simply have been discorporated in his efforts to thwart the machinations of Hell. He's not looking forward to explaining it to Gabriel, but it is at least understandable after all these millennia. They have to allow him one unfortunate discorporation, surely? And, while he's in Heaven, he can have another look around for any sign of the child.

Crowley saves him all the trouble of a trip Upstairs by calling his friends off. He acts as though he's only just realised who's under the helmet, but Aziraphale strongly suspects he's known all along. If Crowley wants to toy with him, that's his lookout; at least he hasn't discorporated him. That's a good sign, surely?

And then his remarkable demon - _the_ demon, his _adversary_ \- makes the utterly ludicrous suggestion that they should stop cancelling each other out, work together somehow. Aziraphale, of course, tells him it's out of the question and clanks away - Crowley _knows_ how much is at stake - but he's not really surprised when, settling into his tent for the night on the way back to Camelot, he spots a shadow moving about outside.

The shadowy figure stands between the tent and the dying fire, apparently uncertain of how to proceed.

"Who's there?" He calls, as if he wouldn't know that lithe form anywhere. The figure stiffens, then snorts quietly to itself.

"Banditsss."

"Oh, dear. Well, I suppose you'd better come in, then."

Another moment's hesitation, and then the figure is fumbling with the tent fastenings, getting the lowest few inches unlaced and then slithering in through the gap. He seems to consider relacing them by hand for a moment, so Aziraphale snaps his fingers.

"Not trying to keep you in, fiend," he points out, as if he's commenting on what fine weather they're having, "just keeping the cold out."

"It is cold," Crowley admits, and Aziraphale indicates the mass of furs and blankets he's collected. Crowley makes no move to take one, nor to join him, more's the pity, so Aziraphale hurls one of the lighter blankets at his face and watches with satisfaction as he absent-mindedly wraps it around himself. "It's good to see you."

Aziraphale shifts a little closer, trying to make out the expression on Crowley's face in the darkness, but he's silhouetted against the dying light of Aziraphale's fire. God help them, they're going to have to use their _words._

"Is it?" He ventures softly, still afraid of the answer after more than two hundred years of dwelling on their previous conversation.

"Of course it is. Didn't you listen, earlier? I suggested we help each other out, didn't I? You're so clever, you must know what that was."

"A shameless attempt to get out of-"

"A peace offering," Crowley interrupts. "I _am_ ashamed. Of what I said, before."

"You have every right to blame me-"

"But I don't. Not really. You're the one who worked out how to keep our-" He falters, and Aziraphale is sure he's listening for any hint of an eavesdropper, too. "Our _secret_ safe," he continues, "I can't be angry with you for Heaven screwing us over."

It's as close to an apology as Aziraphale is going to get, but he doesn't want one. If anything, he should be apologising to Crowley for his own thoughtlessness all those years ago.

"I feel a fool, you know. For not realising how hard you had it," he offers in return, and when Crowley doesn't reply he grows bold. "You were so angry. But you kissed me."

"Hardly even a kiss," Crowley protests, but Aziraphale ploughs on. Somehow, it's easier in the dark.

"I treasured it."

For a moment, there's silence in the tent. The fire Aziraphale made has finally gone out altogether, not a crackle of flame or a shifting of logs to disturb the peace, and the air feels heavy, somehow. Charged. It shifts around him, and Aziraphale could swear he can sense Crowley, closer than before, his face mere inches from Aziraphale's. He could swear he feels the demon's breath on his own lips-

"Sure I can't tempt you to slacking off?" The question starts close and ends on the other side of the tent, as though Crowley had never moved at all. Perhaps Aziraphale is imagining things; that's probably it. Crowley has been sitting at the far end of his bedroll the whole time.

"You know we can't risk it," he reminds him, hating the breathlessness in his own voice. "If we're caught, we'll never find them."

"We wouldn't get caught, nobody cares-"

"They could catch us _now_ , and they'd destroy you. Perhaps both of us."

"All right, angel. I can take a hint. Stay out of trouble."

And Crowley is gone, as if he'd only ever been a dream.


	7. Rendlæsham, 762 AD

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is sadly lacking in Crowley, but in case anyone was wondering what Heaven has been up to lately...

**Rendlæsham, 762 AD**

Aziraphale’s eyes are beginning to struggle in the light when he feels the crackle of an ethereal presence in the peaceful stillness of the room. He turns to his left, expecting Crowley, and a cough from behind him surprises him instead.

“Gabriel!” The archangel gives him a perfunctory smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes.

“Aziraphale. Not interrupting, am I?”

“No, no, I was just transcribing this poem-”

“You remember, of course, that you’re due an inspection.”

“Oh.” He doesn’t remember; he’s fairly certain he’d remember if he’d been due an inspection, if somebody had told him. But he’s not going to argue with an archangel. He can’t risk Falling, now more than ever. It's just one more danger that became more significant that day in Anathoth. “Yes, of course. Will you be handling it on your own?”

“No, no - the others are on their way now. Just Uriel, and a few members of the Ninth Choir. Nothing to worry about.” That cold smile makes another appearance, and Aziraphale worries.

Uriel pops into existence beside Gabriel and introduces the three angels behind her.

“Aziraphale. This is Humiel, that’s Jorael, and finally Iaoth. They’ll be observing today as part of our ongoing Earth training initiative.”

“Should I expect to be replaced by one of these fine angels?” Aziraphale jokes, trying to break the ice that seems to have settled in his stomach, but Gabriel shakes his head.

“Oh, we have no plans to send additional field agents down. We’re just keeping up the educational standards in Heaven as much as we can. You’ll be stuck down here for a while, I’m afraid, Aziraphale.”

“As She wills,” Aziraphale murmurs dutifully, relieved beyond all measure.

His inspection is really just an interrogation - they ask him to explain what he’s been doing, whether he’s holding the forces of Hell at bay, what blessings he’s performed and where he’ll go next. They don’t really seem to listen to his answers. As a special treat, each of the lesser angels is allowed to ask him a question when the archangels are done.

“How do you know where you’re needed?” Humiel enquires.

“Well, I go where I’m sent, naturally, but in between receiving orders it’s really all about keeping one’s ear to the ground. There are occasionally little signs or rumours that suggest a demon at work, and I do try to scare them off when that happens. Unfortunately, demons are quite well practiced at running away, so sometimes scaring them off is all I can do. No chance to smite them altogether.”

“Is it true you indulge in human habits, like eating and sleeping?” Iaoth asks, and Gabriel sighs. No doubt he’s disappointed in the example Aziraphale will be setting the lower choirs, but Aziraphale knows better than to lie outright about his tendency to indulge in food.

“I do eat, yes; the humans tend to notice if one doesn’t, you see, and I’m trying to keep a low profile down here.”

“Why?” Jorael’s question is simple enough, but he’s not sure how to answer it, and they seem to realise that, rushing to clarify. “Why go to so much trouble to blend in?”

“Well, there are a few reasons,” Aziraphale tells them, frantically racking his brains to remember the official reasons he’s been given over time. He has, of course, never asked, but even Gabriel explains things sometimes - particularly things that Aziraphale already understands. “First and foremost, of course, Orders From Above. It’s important, now that humanity’s got itself established, that the humans don’t have proof of our - and therefore the Almighty’s - existence. It’s all about faith. That’s quite enough on its own, of course, but there are some useful side-effects. For example, humans are suspicious of anything they don’t understand, these days, so being more open might lead to a few more messy discorporations than we’d like. On the other hand, they’re sometimes _too_ trusting, and if they come to know and trust angels as representatives of goodness, they might start trusting demons in the same way. They can be quite terrible at spotting the difference, you see. Besides, if they knew an angel walked among them, I’d never get anything done, and neither would they; they’d be queueing up to beg for miracles.”

The lesser angels nod; Uriel and Gabriel turn from where they’ve been conversing privately in a corner.

“Well, you’ve passed this time, Aziraphale - pending paperwork, of course - we’ll be in touch with the official results of your inspection within the next two or three decades. Keep up the good work.” As the other angels blink out of existence, Gabriel leans in. “And do try to lose the gut. Anyone would think that baby had come out of you _yesterday_.”

Then he’s gone, before Aziraphale can even realise what he means - certainly before he can ask if the child is well. If the child is even a child, any more; it _has_ been over seven hundred years, but then what’s a handful of centuries to an immortal being? Are they crawling yet? Can they read? Are they a good, faithful and obedient angel? He wishes he could ask, but Gabriel is gone.

At least if Heaven believes Aziraphale gave birth to the baby himself, they must also believe he has _some_ sort of connection to it. Growing a baby inside oneself, however much divine intervention goes into the process, is quite different to just finding or being given it, by Heaven’s admittedly blinkered standards. After all, nobody had ever denied that Mary was the mother of Jesus, even while varying factions bickered over the biological and familial relevance of poor Joseph, who raised the boy with her. If Heaven thinks Aziraphale held that young angel inside his own body, they must also think he has some right to the child, surely? To know who and how they are, perhaps even to meet them one day?

He resolves to ask Gabriel the next time they meet, if his nerve doesn’t fail him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Historical References: Aziraphale is probably transcribing _Beowulf_.


	8. Ray, 1019 AD

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this contains some sex, it's definitely NSFW but I hesitate to call it smut. Don't get comfortable, basically.
> 
> Also: hoo boy, you guys were mad at Gabriel after the _last_ chapter...

**Ray, 1019 AD**

Aziraphale is sitting in his comfortable bedroom in the centre of Ray, admiring the latest in Persian literature, when lightning strikes the building. He sighs, setting his reading aside so he can go up the stairs and onto the flat roof. He has told Gabriel, every time he's changed his place of residence, that he will attract less attention by simply appearing inside his home, or else manifesting on the edge of town and walking in, and yet the archangel prefers to appear on his _roof,_ in broad daylight, with a nice flashy bolt of lightning from a clear blue sky just to really draw the locals' attention. 

"Gabriel. How lovely to see you. Can I help you with something?"

"Just popping down to check on Humiel - we're allowing some of the star pupils from the Ninth Choir to do a few little Earth excursions, but they do need _some_ supervision - and thought I'd drop in on our most dedicated Earth agent while I'm here."

"Oh, that's very thoughtful of-"

"What's your play here, Aziraphale? Some sort of demonic mischief to thwart? It all seems pretty quiet."

"Well, I believe the forces of Hell are still regrouping after I managed to inspire that Korean peace treaty last year-" Crowley had inspired it, technically, bored of interfering with both sides of the war, but he'd asked Aziraphale to take the credit for it to avoid his side's disapproval. "-so I've been checking in on the products of peace and prosperity here. Literature, art… you know the sort of thing."

"Yes, well. Be ready for proper orders." Gabriel looks about ready to leave, so Aziraphale blurts out the first thing that comes to mind.

"Humiel needs supervision, then? Is that because of their- their age?"

"They lack Earth experience, Aziraphale." It's obvious that the archangel both understands and disapproves of the question he's really asking, but Aziraphale can't turn back now.

"It's just- I wondered if I might be permitted to visit the child, the one given to me in Anathoth. Or- just to know how they-?"

"Request - a _frivolous_ request, when you're needed on Earth - denied. Await instructions." And Gabriel is gone.

Aziraphale is sitting outside, gazing up at the stars where only hours before he had been staring at empty blue skies, when the beggar woman approaches.

"Alms, kind sir?"

"Of course, here." He passes her a handful of coins without really looking, and she sniggers. The sound is familiar.

"Too easy. Don't you know me by now, angel?"

Aziraphale turns; he knows the beggar only too well, knows every inch of her current form and feels the pull of her presence no matter how far away he goes. He must have been lost even deeper in his thoughts than he'd realised, to miss it.

"Crowley. You fiend. What are you doing here?"

"Finished in Korea. Been wandering. Wanted to see you."

"Oh." The warm feeling that suffuses him at her words plunges into ice as he remembers his conversation with Gabriel. She will ask. It's foolish to think she won't. That's probably why she's sought him out, and he's going to have to disappoint her. "Something I can help you with?"

"Nothing in particular," Crowley shrugs, taking a seat at his side. "Unless you've got any news."

"No. I did actually ask, today, but Gabriel-"

"He wouldn't answer?" There's a sharp, high note of panic in the demon's voice, and Aziraphale knows she's leaping to conclusions.

"He had to leave," he soothes, "another angel needed to make a report. The archangels are very busy, he probably didn't even hear me as he left."

"There are other angels on Earth now?"

"Not on a regular basis. Some of the Ninth Choir will be popping down as part of learning about Earth, so do be a dear and leave them alone. They're not in any way prepared to deal with your antics - and they _are_ pursuing knowledge."

"Hmm, well, I know how you like to encourage the pursuit of knowledge." Crowley fixes him with a challenging look. "What's in it for me?"

"Anything you want." He dares, somehow, to return the challenge. "I'm entirely at your disposal."

 _"Oh."_ Crowley hesitates, for a moment; licks her lips. "Anything?"

"Whatever you might want from me." Aziraphale nods, then lets his gaze trail deliberately down Crowley's body and back up to her face. _"Anything at all."_ The implication couldn't be clearer; if Crowley wants him, she can have him. He hopes she wants him.

They stumble into Aziraphale's bedroom - barely used for its intended purpose - and Crowley tugs him forward, wraps her arms around him and waits, her lips a breath from his, for him to close the gap. Aziraphale almost turns and runs, afraid of finally getting what he's been dreaming about for a millennium. He cannot mess this up. But he cannot pass this up.

His lips barely brush Crowley's before the demon takes control of the kiss, hauling him closer and tugging at his clothes. The Effort she's making is not as he assumed; at least, it isn't now, though the lingering sense of a miracle suggests that she's only just changed it. He makes a soft, surprised sort of sound into her mouth as he feels the solid pressure of her arousal against his own. Crowley pulls away, and Aziraphale thinks he might die.

"Do you want me? Like this? I know you said _anything,_ but-"

"I always want you," he whispers, a foolish confession, but maybe she doesn't hear. He reaches out for her, longing, and she tumbles into his arms, clothes vanishing between them. "Fuck, Crowley."

"That's the general idea."

She reaches for him and the brush of her fingers over hot, sensitive skin is almost enough to bring the whole thing to an undignified end. He endures it for two, three more careful movements of her hand, and then he has to break their contact, dropping to his knees.

"Angel-?" She doesn't get any further, because Aziraphale takes her into his mouth and sucks as though his continued existence depends on it. Too late, he realises that this is not helping him to calm down; Crowley makes half a movement with her hips and it's already too much. The slightest touch, the slightest sound will finish him now, after so many nights - a millennium - spent guiltily imagining the moment Crowley might let him back into her intimate graces. She moans, clutching at his hair, and it's all over for him; he spends on the floor between her feet as his own noises vibrate through her body. "Ssssss- ffff- _angel-"_

And maybe she's been thinking of this for some time, too, or maybe he's doing something right, but it's not long before Crowley makes a broken sound and chokes out, "gonna come, angel."

Aziraphale hums again and keeps going, absently wondering how Crowley's climax might taste, whether he can take it all, whether it will fill him up. But Crowley makes a noise like a sob, half-joy, half-pain, and hisses a single word that chills his heart.

_"Sssssstop."_

He draws back, horrified, and watches in bewilderment as she turns away, legs shaking, and uses her own hand to bring herself off. She's looking into his eyes, over her shoulder, as she comes undone, and there's no trace of accusation in those yellow orbs, just pleasure and guilt and… fear.

Crowley is afraid of him, he realises as she carefully settles on the floor and miracles the mess from her fingers. Crowley wanted him, but now she is afraid. He scrambles for clothes, for a miracle to clean his floor and cover his shame, and Crowley just sits, naked, smiling and _afraid_. 

"Crowley?"

"The humans worked it out. Years ago."

"Worked what out?"

She snaps her fingers and she's dressed, not in a beggar's rags but in the garments of a culture far from here. She means to leave.

"If we don't mix," she begins, as if she's discovered some new wonder of the universe. "It can't happen again."

That's clear enough; Aziraphale tries to hide the hurt he feels. It's Crowley's right - every human-shaped being's right - to decide what she does with her own corporation, and who else gets to touch it. He doesn't quite understand what's changed, but she doesn't owe him any explanation and so he doesn't ask for one.

"No more sex," he confirms, and she looks up at him in shock. That hurts too; had she really thought he'd argue with her? "Strictly platonic, from now on. This… I'm sorry for my mistake." He may not know how he upset her, but he truly is sorry for whatever he did to make _this_ anything but perfect for her.

Crowley's mouth sets into a grim, hard line.

"Agreed. I have to go." 

She stands and starts towards the door; he lets her go, but he can't help asking one vital question. 

"Crowley. Are we still friends?"

"We are an _angel_ and a _demon,_ " she sneers, and then her lips twitch upwards into a real smile. "Of course we are. Look after yourself, angel."

"You too, my dear."

Then she's gone, and Aziraphale is alone again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Historical References: Persia did have a lot going for it in this period, and if my cursory google research serves me right, a war did end in Korea a year before this chapter's setting.


	9. Paris, 1277 AD

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments are always appreciated but would be extra appreciated over the next few days as I'm likely to be quite stressed. I hope you enjoy this chapter!

**Paris, 1277 AD**

They have been crushingly professional, for two enemies working together, since that night in Ray. Oh, they've met up again - barely 30 years later, they crossed paths in Germany and Crowley lost a coin toss, which he didn't seem too unhappy about. Since then, there have been other jobs exchanged, but not a word of personal chat beyond what a human might share with a neighbour. Crowley doesn't even ask if he's seen their child, and neither does Aziraphale; if they knew anything, they'd tell each other. It's best not to drag up old wounds.

For the same reason, they haven’t discussed what happened in Ray. Aziraphale, at least, feels the memory like a wound; Crowley had wanted him, he was sure of it, and then all of a sudden Aziraphale had been pushed away. _We don’t mix,_ the demon had told him, _it can’t happen again._ He doesn’t understand - _still_ , after two hundred years of turning it over and over - what went wrong that night, what had happened to change the mood so quickly from passion to pain. He wonders, on occasion, if he _should_ ask Crowley about it - what had changed his mind, made him rule out any future… well, intimacy, he supposes - but he never quite dares.

He hasn’t seen Crowley in twenty years, since enlisting his help to keep Matthew Paris and Henry III of England from dying of exhaustion or killing one another during a week-long interview session in the 50s. Since then, Aziraphale has been in Paris himself - the city, not the chronicler - appreciating the _pecia_ system and, more specifically, the way the University of Paris is using it. He’s spending his days - and nights, and entirely too many candles - copying parts of books and carefully checking them against the originals before returning them to the library and collecting the next part; Crowley, he knows, has been running largely unthwarted, driving forward the Condemnations in the very same city where Aziraphale resides. He’s been working on that project - aside from his quick trip to help Aziraphale out with the interview situation - since very nearly the beginning of the century, and it’s clear from the sheer un-Crowleyness of it all that Hell is keeping a close watch on the situation. Aziraphale, therefore, leaves him to it - he owes Crowley several free passes at this point, if he’s honest, regardless of what Heaven might think of it.

They’re not due to meet again for another thirty or forty years, barring exceptional circumstances, so it’s something of a shock when Crowley appears with a _pop_ on his desk, upsetting a candle and startling Aziraphale into blotting his manuscript. He can miracle the ink away, of course, but it won’t be the same. Crowley winces, but doesn’t apologise, eyes darting around wildly to assess his surroundings.

“Angel - where’s the last place an angel would look for me?” He’s more sibilant than usual, just a little shy of truly hissing, and it takes him a moment to understand. “The last place they’d look for a demon. Quick!”

“Er. _Ah._ The unicorn’s grave on Mount Ararat, I suppose. They think the mountain’s-”

Crowley is already gone.

“-consecrated,” Aziraphale finishes quietly.

He reaches for his candle, which thankfully blew itself out as it fell, and is startled once again by the sudden presence of an angel behind his chair.

“Argh!” He turns, expecting Gabriel, and finds himself face-to-face with a lesser angel instead. It’s one of the Ninth Choir angels Uriel introduced to him back in the late 700s, and they look as confused as he is about why they’re there.

“Principality Aziraphale! I’m sorry, did I startle you? Your ink-”

“No- well, yes, a little. Never mind, though- it’s good to see you again. How can I help you?”

“I was- I thought- you haven’t seen a demon around here, have you? Sensed one, maybe?”

“I’m afraid not, no. Have you lost one?”

The angel looks, all of a sudden, very tired and faint as they nod, and Aziraphale rushes to help them sit on the edge of his bed.

“You’ve turned quite pale - do you know what that means, in human corporations?”

“It means… scared. Or sick. Or dead!” The angel looks even more alarmed, now, and Aziraphale shakes his head.

“Well, your corporation certainly isn’t dead, and angels don’t get sick. So what are you afraid of, er… I’m sorry, is it Iaoth or Jorael? It’s been some time since we first met.”

“I didn’t think you’d remember me at all, to be honest,” the angel confesses, “I’m nothing remarkable. My name is Jorael - Iaoth wouldn’t have made such a mess of things.”

“All of God’s creations are remarkable,” Aziraphale reminds them gently, “and you are an _angel_ , one of Her most treasured. Now, what is it that you think you’ve messed up? Perhaps I can help.”

The story comes out in fits and starts - Jorael keeps lapsing into their worries about what Gabriel will say, or Michael, or Uriel - but it does eventually, with a little prompting from Aziraphale, come out.

“I’m only supposed to be here to observe, to learn about Earth. But I heard about what the humans were doing, making up rules that weren’t Hers, stopping the other humans from learning - I love learning, you know, that’s why I was so excited to get down here - and I thought there must be demons involved. I thought- I thought I’d just go and see. So I did, and there _was_ a demon, and I was… I suppose I felt that Divine Wrath thing Gabriel always talks about. Oh, he’s going to be so angry with me-”

“Divine Wrath isn’t a sin,” Aziraphale offers, though he suspects what the lesser angel experienced was actually something more akin to simple mundane rage, “and only God Herself is perfect. Go on.”

“I- well, I challenged him. The demon. Told him to stop what he was doing and leave the humans in peace. And then I realised he was probably going to attack me, and I’m not very strong, not in this corporation, I haven’t had enough practice, and Michael never thought I was much of a soldier anyway- oh, _no_ , what if Michael hears about-”

“Never mind her for now. Go on, what happened?”

“He was going to attack me, I thought, but he didn’t. He just _vanished_ , like he was running away, and so I- well, once I realised he was scared, I tried to follow, but I must have tracked the wrong signature-”

“Same original stock,” Aziraphale sympathises.

“-Uriel will be furious if they hear I couldn’t tell the difference between a demon and a Principality - but that’s how I ended up here. I’m terribly sorry for ruining your work. Is it ruined?”

“I’ll miracle it away. I’ll know, but the humans this is intended for won’t." The other angel still looks uncertain, so he presses on. "I’m sorry if my ethereal signature threw you off of the demon’s trail. It was very brave of you to confront him.”

“I should have left it to you. I’m sorry. If you want to shout at me, you should probably do it now, because I don’t expect I’ll be allowed back down here after this.”

“I wouldn’t be too sure of it, Jorael.” He can’t help but feel sorry for them; they have, after all, only done what is expected of angels who encountered demons - Aziraphale should have thwarted Crowley himself by now, if he hadn’t been afraid of getting the demon into more trouble than he could handle - and they’ve even successfully tracked Crowley as far as Aziraphale’s room. “The demon fled, you said. And I don’t sense any demon in Paris any more. Do you?”

“No,” Jorael concedes. “You knew he was here?”

“Oh. Well. Yes. On occasion, it’s best to observe one’s adversary for a while before thwarting them - a demon’s temptations can be a sort of test for the humans, in small doses. It gives them an opportunity to resist. Although I’d rather you didn’t repeat that.” He clears his throat awkwardly. “Trade secret. The important thing is, the demon has fled, abandoning his evil workings. If he doesn’t come back to finish the job, you’ve successfully thwarted a demon. That’s nothing to be ashamed of!”

“But I didn’t even discorporate him, so he’s going to come back,” Jorael sighs. “Uriel will be furious.”

“I’ll take it from here, make sure he doesn’t finish what he started. It was on my to-do list anyway,” Aziraphale lies, “and it’s up to you whether you tell Uriel what you did or not.”

“I have to report back. Don't I?”

“Nobody in Heaven is going to ask if you defeated a demon during your visit,” Aziraphale assures them, “and it’s not really important. You don’t need to waste an archangel’s time with it, unless you want to claim the credit you’re due.”

“I don’t need credit,” Jorael tells him quickly, “I’ll leave the demon-chasing to you in future, I think.”

“Very wise.”

“I’d better go- you have your writing to repair - I really am sorry - and I should get back to Heaven before they start thinking I’ve deserted. Gabriel always says _I thought you’d Fallen_ whenever I’m late anywhere. I just get distracted, sometimes.” Aziraphale’s appalled, but not surprised, that Gabriel thinks that’s an appropriate thing to joke about with lesser angels. He probably doesn’t even consider how much it sounds like a threat, like their worst nightmares come to mock them.

“I quite understand. Earth is full of distractions; I find myself losing track of time, too. Go on, don’t get into trouble. It really was nice to speak to you again.”

“You don’t think I’ll Fall for letting the demon escape?”

“I think if you were going to, you would have by now. You did nothing wrong, Jorael. Now get off back to Heaven before you _are_ late.”

Jorael salutes, bows, and finally leaves; Aziraphale forces himself to remain calm, tidying up his papers and setting his manuscript to rights before he reaches out to his innate sense of Crowley and tugs, gently, on the connection that seems to have formed between them over the years. A moment later, Crowley is in his room - thankfully, not on the desk, this time. Aziraphale is occupying the room’s only chair, so the demon perches on the edge of the bed, glancing around as if he’s expecting some sort of ambush.

“Is it safe?”

“No, Crowley, I called you back here while Jorael was still around, just to see the sparks fly.”

“Who?”

“The angel who followed you here. Why on Earth did you come to me?”

“Had to get away. Figured they wouldn’t expect me to get past you. What did you tell them, you discorporated me, or-?”

“They thought they’d followed the wrong miracle signature, and I didn’t correct them. I think it might be best if you take the excuse to leave Paris, though. Abandon these Condemnations you’ve been working on - surely it’s gone on long enough, and it’s not as though you _like_ them banning certain knowledge - and let it be.”

“Or what? You’ll thwart me?”

“I’d rather not have to.”

“Such sloth, angel.” But he’s grinning. “Suppose your friend’s done me a favour, then. One of the Ninth Choir lot, was it?”

“Yes. Jorael’s given you a rather neat little escape route, if you ask me. You’ve been thwarted, fair and square.”

“Well, I suppose so. Although I hope you realise I’ll be blaming you in my report. The Principality Aziraphale, Guardian of the Eastern Gate, is a much more impressive angel to be run out of town by than Juriel, of the Lowest Choir.”

“Whatever you think is best, dear.” Aziraphale frowns. “They said you didn’t fight.”

“Of course I didn’t. Did you know this Juriel-”

“Jorael,” Aziraphale corrects, and the demon flaps a hand at him dismissively.

“Did you know _Jorael_ before Anathoth? Because I didn’t. So you _know_ why I didn’t fight.”

“Of course I know why,” Aziraphale snaps. “But they _noticed_. I don’t want Heaven asking questions, Crowley.”

“Wouldn’t worry. Your side aren’t great at that.”

“Oh, there’s no talking to you. Just- try to put on a bit of a show, at least, in future. If you really can’t avoid angels altogether.”

Crowley quirks an eyebrow at him.

“Is that a hint? Sick of me already?” Aziraphale doesn’t know how he can ask that - even in jest - when he’s perched on Aziraphale’s bed looking so utterly delicious. _And poisonous,_ he reminds himself sternly, _you know what he said. It can’t happen again, and if you so much as hint at how attracted you are to him, you’ll lose him forever._

“Not at all,” he replies carefully, “I could use cheering up, actually, if you’ve time for a bottle or two. I hate to see the Lower Choirs so afraid of Falling. Gabriel’s been making jokes about it when they’re late, can you believe it?”

“He jokes about Falling? To scare less important angels? I’ve said it before-”

“Yes, I’m aware of what you think of Gabriel.” Aziraphale reaches under his desk and produces a bottle of wine which had not, a minute earlier, been there. “Wine?”

“Yeah, all right.”

It’s not quite like old times - they’re both subdued, guarded in a way they never used to be around one another - but something seems to ease between them as they talk into the night.

"Do you think _they_ could have Fallen?" Crowley blurts suddenly, and Aziraphale doesn't have to ask who he means.

"Why? Is there a new demon?"

"There are always new demons dragging themselves out of the pits. Stuck there since the Fall, or thrown in there for being exceptionally awful humans. No way to tell if a freshly-fallen angel got mixed in there."

"Then we can't be sure," Aziraphale admits, "but I'm almost certain Gabriel would have come down to blame me for it."

"It wouldn't be your fault. That'd be my side coming through. Oh, I never thought I'd say this, but I hope they don't take after me."

"We'd have heard," Aziraphale insists, hoping he's right, and changes the subject before Crowley can get any more upset.

By the end of the night, they've run out of both wine and worries, but it can't last.

“Where will you go next?” Aziraphale asks, sobering up as the sun begins to rise, and Crowley shrugs.

“If I’m trying to shake off a Principality on my tail, I might revisit some old haunts, make a bit of a trip of it. See how long I can dodge Hell for. When shall we meet?”

“I thought we were meeting early next century?”

“Best not, now. If you’ve just thwarted me and all. Shall we say the mid-1400s, back here? Unless you need me in the meantime, of course.”

“Oh. Yes, I suppose you’re right. And you’ll come to me if you need help before then?”

“Of course I will. I did today, didn’t I?” Crowley pauses, hand on the door handle. “And if you get news-”

“Right away. Same to you.”

“I won’t. My side doesn’t know anything about it. Take care of yourself, angel.”

When Crowley leaves, Aziraphale tries to focus on his copying again. It proves much harder than it had been before.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Historical References: the _pecia_ system was introduced to Paris (from Italy) around this sort of time - a much faster system for copying out books. The Paris Condemnations are probably best googled because I know very little about them.


	10. London, 1483 AD

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm loving all the speculation in the comments. Please do keep your theories (and threats against certain archangels) coming! Anyway, I'm fond of this chapter, so I hope you'll enjoy it too.

**London, 1483 AD**

Gabriel doesn't question Aziraphale's presence in England when he pops down to check on the progress of the Spanish Inquisition; Aziraphale keeps his report short and light on details, but he can't help feeling a little disturbed by the archangel's excitement over a practice that had very nearly made a demon vomit when he'd heard about it. Crowley had despised the fact that he was being credited with the atrocities the humans were carrying out - and here Gabriel is, grinning about it all and hinting that if the Inquisition continues its brutal campaign against heresy, Aziraphale might be in line for a medal.

It's hard to say what Iaoth thinks about it all; they stand, stone-faced, beside Gabriel, and Aziraphale suspects they're not entirely paying attention to the conversation. They're probably right not to; it's a discussion between two of their superiors, after all, and none of their business. They're probably just waiting to be sent off on their own to explore the Earth, and Aziraphale can't blame them; check-ins are tedious enough when you're the one being checked up on.

He wishes Iaoth _was_ off exploring, actually, because their presence makes it much harder to ask Gabriel for the specific favour he wants to ask.

"Might I speak with you alone, Gabriel? There was another matter I wanted to raise, but it's confidential."

"Is it?" Gabriel smiles that cold, brittle smile of his, ice that might crack and drop Aziraphale into freezing water - or boiling sulphur - at any moment.

"By your order," Aziraphale confirms mildly, and that smile becomes a little tighter.

"You can speak in front of Iaoth. They won't listen. Right, Iaoth?"

The lesser angel nods, staring straight ahead as if they can see right through Aziraphale and the wall behind him, as if they're staring right through to the distant Tower of London and beyond. Aziraphale wonders if it's really that easy to stop listening on command, if you're a better angel than Aziraphale is, but it doesn't matter, he supposes. Gabriel is the one who wanted the child kept secret; with his permission, Aziraphale can speak.

"I wanted to ask about the child from Anathoth. It's been years, now; I'd like to see them, if I may."

"Aziraphale." It's a sharp reprimand hastily wrapped in a more moderate tone. "We've talked about this before. You have important work to do here, and the child is not your responsibility. Honestly, it's almost as if you don't have faith in Heaven to take care of them properly."

"I have absolute faith in Heaven," Aziraphale tells him, as he knows he must. "I merely wondered what had become of them. A birth like that is quite the novelty, after all. Call it curiosity, if you will."

"Well, curiosity can be dangerous," Gabriel replies, with a dark look. "Ask the humans. Curiosity cost them the Garden - well, that and a demon. You don't want curiosity to cost you Heaven." The threat is clear beneath the thin veneer of concern; _drop it, or risk damnation._ Aziraphale can take a hint.

"Of course, you're quite right. I must focus on my duties here."

There is a moment of perfect stillness as Gabriel studies him, assessing his compliance; Aziraphale tries to look as obedient as Iaoth, who is still staring into the middle distance as if they don't hear a word.

"Yes. Keep up the good work with the Inquisition; the Almighty despises heresy." Aziraphale wonders, through his relief and disappointment, whether Gabriel has actually heard from Her recently. He supposes he must have, or there would be no orders to pass down.

When Gabriel and Iaoth leave, he waits just long enough to feel sure that they aren't about to come back before rushing across London. He knocks on a door no mortal can see, and yellow-gold eyes regard him warily through the barred window set into it before he's admitted.

"Angel. How was it?" Her voice is pitched low so as not to disturb her sleeping charges; Aziraphale suspects that this brief afternoon nap represents a rare moment of peace in a trying day. He answers quietly, not wanting to shatter that precious tranquility in this place of horrors.

"Fine. Disappointing. I asked to see them again."

"And?" But they both know she already sees the answer written on his face.

"He refused. I couldn't ask him any more, not in front of Iaoth. One of the Ninth Choir Earth students - I think Iaoth technically reports to Michael, but she wasn't planning a visit, so Gabriel brought them."

"Poor sod, stuck with Michael. That utter wanker."

"Crowley! Little ears."

"They've heard worse, angel. And they're asleep."

"You're still upset about what happened with Jeanne."

"Yes, I bloody well am. Messing with the poor girl's mind like that - and no matter how hard I tried-" She cut herself off, but Aziraphale knew what she meant. Crowley had tried everything she could think of to try to save young Jeanne from her terrible fate, but the girl had proven impossible to tempt away from the path Michael had set out for her. She'd even refused to listen to Aziraphale, when Crowley had enlisted his help, and Aziraphale was always too afraid to work very hard against Heaven. Jeanne had burned for her cause, and Crowley had disappeared entirely for several decades. 

When she'd finally reappeared, he'd found her trying to drink herself into oblivion over her commendation for the Inquisition; two years later, she'd come to ask for his help once more.

"This is nothing to do with Heaven," she'd assured him, "and Hell don't care what I'm doing right now. I'm worried about these children, Aziraphale, they're in danger."

And so, although children were always in danger all over the country, all over the _world,_ Aziraphale had agreed to help Crowley protect two young boys whose lives had, until recently, been uncommonly comfortable. Crowley had let the story slip out in pieces as they tended to the boys; she'd been trying to stir up some trouble at Court, a favourite pastime because it so rarely needed her to make any real effort, and then a series of misfortunes had led to the children becoming pawns in a deadly game. By the time Aziraphale had got involved, they were already imprisoned, and Crowley was crouching in their cell to play with them and keep them calm, using her wings to block the room from human perception. She'd effectively trapped herself with them, and so Aziraphale had been responsible for making all the arrangements on the outside.

"Tonight, do we think, my dear?"

"If everything's ready. This is no place for them. Remind me where they're going."

"An orphanage I know in Doornik," Aziraphale states, "a good one, run by good people. There are plenty of orphans on the continent, even English ones, and these two will be the bastard sons of a recently-executed noble. No political use to anyone. They'll be safe, and treated well."

"And nobody here will know what happened to these boys," Crowley concludes. "That'll get tongues wagging. Humans, they love a mystery."

"And you don't?" Aziraphale teases. "Anyway. I should think this counts as _making trouble,_ if Hell ever finds out."

"They won't. Right. Best get started, then, if you're ready."

"No time like the present."

It's strange, watching Crowley rouse the children from their slumber. She's so gentle, such tenderness in her movements and the way she calls their names-

"Edward. Richard. I know you're tired, but it's time to go-"

-and for a moment Aziraphale can't see the young brothers at all; in his mind's eye, it's _their_ child grumbling their way into consciousness, gently chivvied into putting on a cloak Crowley's just spun out of thin air.

"Any time you want to be helpful, angel," Crowley snaps, and Aziraphale crashes back to reality, rushes to fuss over shoes and adjust the quality of their clothing. By the time he's finished, their clothes are neatly patched and mended and ten years out of fashion; they look like illegitimate sons of nobility dressed in cousins' cast-offs, not royals in tattered finery.

"You have to remember your story," Aziraphale tells them, "even if you forget us." It's not really a matter of _if;_ they will have no memories of escaping the city, the people who helped them, the miraculous arrival they're about to make in Doornik. But there's no sense in scaring them.

"We're Anthony and Richard," the twelve year old recites obediently; his little brother is too young to remember an alias, but _Anthony_ has taken to it like a duck to water. He's named himself for an uncle, apparently. "We never met our father, but he was a nobleman who was executed last year." It's clear that this part of the story stings - the boys really did lose their father only recently - but if anything, that lends authenticity to the tale.

"And your mother?" Crowley prompts, turning to Richard. Only nine, he stands as tall as he can beside his brother.

"Mary Orme, of Crawley." His lip trembles. "She tried to take us to safety overseas but she died on the way."

"Well done. Your real mother is safe and well, Richard. Remember that."

"But we'll never see her again?"

"Perhaps not." Crowley wraps an arm around each of the boys and squeezes gently. "But sometimes we have to stay away from people we love, so they'll be safe. It doesn't mean not loving each other."

Two hours later, two slightly dazed and disoriented boys wave goodbye to a kindly couple who met them on the road and escorted them to an orphanage. They thank them for their pains, and the woman-shaped being hugs both children tightly before walking away.

An hour after _that,_ Crowley and Aziraphale are back in London, well on the way to being quite drunk, and speculating about what various people will think has happened to their young charges. And by midnight, they are quite sober again and walking away in different directions, alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> EDIT: If you're puzzling over the historical references, this chapter mentions Joan of Arc (Jeanne) and The Princes in the Tower.


	11. London, 1601 AD

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Early update because natsue-yotsuki is a very effective tempter... Not sure when next chapter will go up (could be near midnight my time as usual, could be mid-morning) but this is effectively an extra update.
> 
> I'm loving all the speculation about various things in the comments. This won't give you much fodder for the wild theories some of you have come up with, but that's mostly because here be smut. Enjoy!

**London, 1601 AD**

Aziraphale returns from Edinburgh filled with all the excitement of a job well done, and rushes to meet Crowley in his lodgings. He's taken rooms beside a popular and noisy brothel, because of course he has, just to make Aziraphale uncomfortable. 

"I don't think your side will be sniffing around here," Crowley corrects him, when he says as much, "and my side will only get distracted trying to work out what's going on."

"I wondered, myself," Aziraphale admits, aware that he can hear the clanking of chains and the swish of birch beneath the more predictable sounds of flesh on flesh on the other side of the thin wall.

"Pain can be very closely tied to pleasure, as it turns out." Crowley peers a little more closely at the letter Aziraphale's brought, then sweeps his dark glasses from his face so he can read in the dim candlelight. The yellow of his eyes is blown a little wider than usual, Aziraphale notices. "They're all enjoying themselves."

"You- how can you be sure?"

"Feel it, angel. Besides, that place is under my protection. Nothing but lust and a little greed at play there, believe me. They're enjoying it."

"I thought _you_ were enjoying it, in Ray." Oh, Hell, he doesn't mean to say that, but Crowley drops the letter in shock and Aziraphale reasons that since the damage is done, he might as well press on. "I haven't dared to ask, but- would you mind telling me what I did wrong? It's been bothering me for nearly six hundred years."

"What _you_ did wrong?" Crowley frowns at him. "You're the one who decided there'd be no more sex. Were you really that offended that I didn't want you to end up in my position?"

"Your-? You said- _you_ said it couldn't happen again. You said we didn't mix."

"Well, we didn't! I thought I finally had a solution, a way we could go on with it all, and then you decided it was over-"

For a moment, the indignant fury in the room threatens to flash over into a fight, and then the pieces begin to fall into place.

_If we don't mix… it can't happen again._

"Crowley, what did you mean, when you said it couldn't happen again? When you pushed me away?" It wasn't the first time he'd heard something similar, now he came to think of it. In Alexandria… _Don't, angel. I can't do it again._

"I didn't- I- you _know_ what I meant. I couldn't bear it if one of us fell pregnant again, I couldn't lose another child- I didn't want _you_ to go through it, any of it, knowing what would happen. But the humans worked it out, like I told you. If we didn't mix - if neither of us spent inside the other - that couldn't happen." Crowley folded his arms. "And _your_ response was to call the whole thing a mistake."

"I meant- I thought you regretted it! I didn't know what I'd done, I just knew you were unhappy - you were _scared_ \- and I was sorry for whatever I'd done wrong to scare you."

There's a long pause as they both process that, the silence broken only by breathy moans and grunts from the room next door.

"You didn't just not want me?" Crowley breathes at last, and his eyes are almost entirely yellow.

"You were afraid if you, ah... _spent_... in my mouth, I'd fall pregnant?"

Crowley scowls, blushing all the while. "I didn't know quite how things worked, back then. I was afraid we'd believe it into being, somehow. Answer the question."

"I've never stopped wanting you," Aziraphale admits. "Not for a moment. And you-?"

"Never stopped," the demon confirms, and Aziraphale squirms in his seat. The moaning next door fills his ears, making it hard to focus, but he has to keep control. Crowley has legitimate concerns, after all.

"Then- could we, somehow-"

Crowley is on him before he knows it, his goatee tickling Aziraphale's chin as he kisses him desperately. Aziraphale groans into the kiss, feeling his body spring to attention as he buries his hand in Crowley's hair. They break apart for a moment, breathing hard, and Crowley meets his eyes.

"I know you don't like miracles around your clothes-"

"Please." It comes out as a whimper. Crowley nods and kisses him again, dragging him towards the bed in a stumbling motion. As they sink down onto it, Aziraphale feels cold air and then warm skin; a glance reveals that their clothes have been placed haphazardly on a chair. He appreciates the consideration, but not nearly as much as he appreciates the feeling of Crowley pressing their bodies together, hips rolling.

"What do you want, angel?"

"We both have Adam bodies," Aziraphale points out, "it's all safe, isn't it? Neither of us is going to conceive this way."

"Probably," Crowley concedes, "but I'm not sure I can last long enough to really test it."

"No, I feel- I feel quite the same." Crowley is still rolling his hips, his hand coming to take hold of them both, and coherent thought is becoming a struggle. "We could go on like this."

"Yeah?" Crowley jerks against him, then winces. "Do you have any oil?"

He doesn't, but with a snap of his fingers he summons a small bottle. Crowley pours a generous amount into his hand and resumes his previous activity. Aziraphale slips a hand down to help him as his lips find the demon's again, and it feels like he's burning up from inside.

When they come apart, all too soon, Aziraphale keeps his arms wrapped around Crowley. The demon nuzzles his face into his angel's neck - Aziraphale isn't too proud to admit that he has, deep down, been Crowley's for a long time now - and he can't help but laugh.

"Your beard tickles."

"Duly noted." But he doesn't move, one skinny leg still thrown carelessly across Aziraphale's body. "Want me to clean up?"

"Oh, would you?" Crowley draws back for a moment, licking his lips. "Oh! Oh, you meant-"

"I can, if you want. I will."

"Mm. It sounds lovely, my dear, but I think it might be too much tonight. Besides, I'd like to hold you."

"Miracle it is, then." Crowley looks a little relieved as he snaps his fingers, and Aziraphale can't help but wonder if he's still afraid that he could get pregnant orally. They'll have to talk about it, at some point; whether Crowley's fears are entirely rational or not, Aziraphale doesn't want him to hide them from him. It can wait, though; Aziraphale still feels oddly floaty and euphoric. Crowley seems to be falling asleep.

"I wish I could stay and cuddle for longer," he tells him regretfully, ten minutes later, and the demon opens one eye. "But we can't risk getting caught."

Crowley rolls onto his side and watches as Aziraphale fumbles his way back into his clothing.

"Will this ever happen again?"

"I'd like it to," Aziraphale admits, "if you want-"

"I do. I- yeah." Crowley's cheeks turn pink. "If you like."

"It might not be safe, most of the time." Aziraphale feels as though he's putting on his worries along with his clothes. "We can't risk being caught. If Heaven work it out…"

"They've got a hostage," Crowley groans. "I know. We'll have to be careful."

"And I have to leave now." He gathers his courage and leans in to kiss Crowley, relieved when the demon kisses back. "It's not that I don't want to stay."

"I know," Crowley whispers, but he looks stunned by the revelation all the same.

"The, ah, Edinburgh details are all in the letter, so your report should be accurate. I'll see you again soon?"

"Of course you will."

When Aziraphale turns at the door, Crowley is still lying on the bed, shamelessly spread-eagled and gloriously naked. It's all he can do to walk away from the sight, but he does.


	12. Paris, 1793 AD

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OK, we're going back to one a day now. Anyway, this is smutty but skims through things a bit, so YMMV on the smuttiness of it all.
> 
> Enjoy!

**Paris, 1793 AD**

"What now?"

Aziraphale dabs at his lips with his handkerchief and sighs contentedly. "The crêpes were delicious, Crowley. Thank you for keeping me company." He dares to look up at the demon from beneath his eyelashes, and watches his jaw tense fractionally in response. " _And_ for the rescue. I feel you ought to have some sort of reward."

"What did you have in mind?"

"Where does your side think you are?"

"Canada, messing with MacKenzie. You?"

"London. So they won't be looking here." He leans in close. "You can have any reward you want."

For a moment, he thinks Crowley hasn't understood; he sits there as if frozen, and Aziraphale wonders if London was simply a one-off occurrence, if the intervening years have dulled his interest. Then Crowley stands, throws some money onto the table, and jerks his head in the direction of the main road.

"I find myself in possession of a room."

It's not much of a room - it seems to be being used to store possessions looted from the nobility, including an admittedly rather luxurious bed - but the door locks and the shutters close. They don't need much more than that. He reaches for Crowley the moment they're inside, dragging him into a kiss, but Crowley breaks it before they can get too heated.

"Wait. Aziraphale, angel, wait." He steps back obediently as Crowley goes on. "Sorry. I just- we need- if we're going to- I have Eve parts, at the moment, and I don't want to change them." He snaps his fingers, and what appears to be a small, narrow pouch appears in his hand. "So- so this is what the humans use."

Aziraphale is well aware of the existence and function of the sheath; he's more concerned about the fact that Crowley's hand is shaking as he holds it out.

"And you're happy to use it?"

Crowley nods. "I just hope it works." He drops it into Aziraphale's outstretched hand, and Aziraphale sets it aside so he can gently remove Crowley's glasses, looking into his eyes.

They're completely golden, and it's not just from lust this time. Aziraphale can feel plenty of desire rolling off of Crowley, but he's still trembling and he won't quite meet Aziraphale's gaze. He's trying to be brave, but Aziraphale can tell he's terrified that he might get pregnant again. He doesn't blame him; losing their child was devastating for _Aziraphale,_ and he hadn't carried the baby around inside his own body for nine months, bonding with it, knowing it existed. Crowley has suffered so much, and Aziraphale won't make him suffer more. Even if Crowley can grit his teeth and get through it, even if he _enjoys_ it, he'll worry about it for weeks afterwards. That's not what Aziraphale wants at all.

He closes his eyes and focuses; he hasn't done this in centuries, and never with someone else present. Changing his form has never come naturally to him, but he's done it before just to practice. Now, as Crowley touches his cheek in concern, he feels his corporation shift.

"All right, angel?"

"Just fine," he assures him, opening his eyes. "How do you feel about matching parts?"

"Matching-? Er. I'd rather stay as I am, if you don't mind-"

"You can. You'd need to, actually, for us to match at the moment."

Crowley blinks at him.

"You don't- that is- I didn't think you did that."

"I don't, usually. I thought you might like to help me explore the potential."

" _Angel._ " He can tell, from Crowley's expression, that he's far from opposed to the idea. The demon sounds as though he can barely breathe. "You don't have to do this for me."

"I know I don't." He takes his hand and leads him to the bed. "Let me."

Crowley is on him almost before they hit the mattress, kissing him as he struggles to divest him of layer after layer of clothes. Aziraphale can't help but chuckle into the kiss as Crowley loses patience and snaps their clothing out of existence. 

"Sorry-"

"Not my clothes," Aziraphale reminds him, "and I'm impatient too."

"Not impatient," Crowley grumbles. "Are you going to tease me, now? I thought you were grateful for the rescue." His eyes are sparkling, though, and Aziraphale shakes his head.

"I am, dear. Let me thank you."

It's the work of moments to roll them so that Crowley is on his back, to kiss his way from his lips to his neck and then on down his body. The demon whimpers and writhes beneath him until Aziraphale presses down on his hips to keep him still.

"Crowley, you look delicious. May I taste?"

"Fuck. Yes."

"Then stay _still_ , dear fiend, I like my nose the shape it is." He suspects Crowley means to have an answer to that, but it's lost in a delighted moan as Aziraphale sets his mouth to work. Crowley is so beautifully responsive, and he finds himself slipping a finger inside without really pausing to think about it. "Sorry, I should have asked-"

"Anything, just don't stop-" And, since Aziraphale has no intention of stopping, that's not a problem.

It's Crowley, in fact, who calls a halt to proceedings just as his movements are becoming so frantic that Aziraphale struggles to hold him.

"Wait, wait, I don't want to- not yet- come here." Aziraphale finds himself pulled in for a kiss, and then Crowley is rolling them over again. "Want to show you- feels so different-"

"Whatever you want," Aziraphale assures him, and then Crowley's fingers brush over his new Effort and he yelps.

"Too much?"

"Please-" Aziraphale scrunches his eyes shut as colours explode behind his eyelids. "Please, more." Crowley chuckles and kisses him again, clever fingers at work all the while. Aziraphale could swear he squeals loud enough to get Heaven's attention, but when he opens his eyes it's still just the two of them - Aziraphale trembling in the wake of his orgasm and Crowley licking his fingers clean in a manner Aziraphale can only describe as _sinful._

"How was it?" The demon asks, and Aziraphale rolls his eyes fondly.

"I think you know I enjoyed it."

"Hm. Good." He darts down to swipe his tongue over hot, sensitive flesh - _too_ sensitive - and Aziraphale sits up to scold him.

"Oh, no. It's your turn."

"I'm enjoying myself," Crowley protests, but he lets Aziraphale urge him up the bed, anyway.

"No, you're enjoying _me,_ and I want to return the favour. Lie down."

Crowley comes twice in quick succession, with Aziraphale's fingers inside him and Aziraphale's mouth on him. When he finally coaxes Aziraphale back for more kisses, they end up rutting against one another's thighs until they both come undone again. Aziraphale cleans them both up with a quick miracle and kisses Crowley's cheek.

"I'm going to put some clothes on and change my body back, my dear."

"Angel," Crowley mumbles, but he's clearly too blissed-out to finish the thought. 

Aziraphale has to concentrate on setting his body back the way he likes it, and by the time he's done Crowley is a little more coherent, miracling up some clothes of his own. They've both dressed for the places they _should_ be, without even discussing it; neither of them intend to stay in the middle of a revolution.

"Thank you," Crowley says, before they part, and Aziraphale shakes his head.

"I thought we didn't say that."

"No, but I know why you did that. So. It's appreciated. That's all."

"Well, I enjoyed it. No need for thanks. Just take care, won't you?"

"I will. Perhaps we'll meet again soon."

"Yes. I might find myself a place in London, you know. Put down some roots. Maybe I'll open that bookshop." He darts Crowley a look. "You could visit."

"Let me know when it opens, and I'll be there."

That sounds extremely promising, to Aziraphale; it makes it easier to leave and face the grey skies of London alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Historical References: Sir Alexander MacKenzie crossed North America (in Canada, or at least what is now Canada) this year. Apparently Crowley was somehow distracted from messing with his journey...


	13. London, 1800 AD

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, I'm assuming you've read the deleted bookshop scene, here. Should be possible to follow without, though. Enjoy!

**London, 1800 AD**

Aziraphale doesn't open his new shop, once Gabriel and Sandalphon have left; instead, he sits alone in the back room, his newly-acquired medal on his lap, and tries to catch up with his own emotions. He had nearly lost so much; he had nearly _gained_ so much.

They had intended to take him back up to Heaven with them; he'd have lost his shop, the Earth, many of his favourite things - but perhaps he would have had a chance to find the child he's been worrying about for almost 1800 years. He could have found a way to let Crowley know if they were all right. But Crowley - Crowley had very nearly walked right into the shop, bearing _gifts_ , no less, and he'd lingered outside, in plain view, for far too long even after he'd spotted the archangels. Aziraphale had thought, for a horrifying minute, that he was about to lose Crowley.

And then, barely half an hour after Gabriel had disappeared in the direction of his tailor's, Sandalphon trailing along behind him, they'd returned to announce that Aziraphale would be staying on Earth, after all. They'd told him to keep the medal. And they had gone.

Aziraphale sits and waits for the visitor he knows will return soon. Sure enough, the locked front door swings open and closed again, unhurried footsteps making their way to the counter. 

"Are you open?" Crowley's voice carries through from the shop. "I'd like to buy a book-"

"In here," Aziraphale calls miserably, and the footsteps approach, much faster than before. Crowley, when he appears in the doorway, is a picture of concern; he tosses the box of chocolates he's carrying aside and rushes to take Aziraphale's hands.

"Angel, what's happened?"

"Oh, Crowley. I'm so sorry. I've let you down again."

"What do you mean?"

"They changed their minds, my dear. They don't want me back in Heaven. I can't check on our child for you." It seems ridiculous, talking about _their child,_ but they had never been given the opportunity of naming them. Aziraphale has no idea what Heaven calls them, so _child_ will have to do. "I would have tried everything to get news to you."

Crowley's face crumples.

"No, I'm sorry, angel. I didn't think - of course you wanted to go back, you would have got to see- _Shit._ I panicked and I fucked it all up for you."

"I don't understand," Aziraphale admits, and that's when Crowley explains Gabriel's abrupt change of heart. Crowley tricked Heaven, because he didn't want Aziraphale to leave - and oh, the things that thought does to Aziraphale - and now he's _apologising._ And yes, perhaps Aziraphale has lost a chance to meet their child, but he's being allowed to stay on Earth, in his home, and see Crowley. Besides-

"I don't think they'd have let me find the baby anyway." It's foolish, he knows, to call them _the baby_ ; they're over a quarter of the Earth's own age, now. But he can't imagine them any other way; the last time he saw them, he could hold them in the crook of his arm. "I'm glad you found a way to keep me here, wily adversary of mine."

Crowley's relief is palpable, but there's still sorrow tugging down at the corners of his mouth. Aziraphale leans in to kiss it away.

"I wish we knew how they were," Crowley murmurs, as Aziraphale draws back, and it's impossible to disagree with that sentiment. Instead, he smiles gently.

"I have wine. Did you mention chocolates?"

"I did." Crowley scrambles to retrieve them as Aziraphale summons a bottle of wine. "I could feed them to you, if you like."

"And you call _me_ a hedonist," Aziraphale teases. Still, he opens his mouth and allows Crowley to place a chocolate in it, darting his tongue out to sweep over the demon's fingers. He moans softly, and he's not the only one; Crowley looks utterly enthralled even as his cheeks flush red.

Hours later, they're still sitting on that backroom chaise, a little tipsy, hands wandering over clothes. It's a wonder the clothes are still on, Aziraphale thinks hazily; Georgian fashion rather suits Crowley, and it's hard enough to resist him when he's dressed as a beggar. He tells Crowley that, and the demon just laughs.

"You've got a shop to open in the morning. _Grandly,_ you've got to open it _grandly."_

"Hm. Suppose so. I only hope nobody tries to _buy_ anything."

"You sure you _want_ a shop, angel?"

"Of course I do! What a question." Crowley sniggers at that, so Aziraphale decides to ignore him. That'll teach him a lesson. He won't even speak to him. "We'll meet them again one day," he declares, immediately forgetting his cunning plan. "Both of us."

"Maybe," Crowley sighs. "Right, 'm gonna go home."

"Ohhhhhhhh," Aziraphale whines, but Crowley is already sobering up. Aziraphale follows suit with a grimace. "We really will see them," he repeats, "we just have to have faith in that."

"I don't do faith any more, angel." He stands, presses a kiss to Aziraphale's temple, and makes for the door. " _You_ might get there, though. If you do, tell them I- well, you know. Tell them what you think they can handle."

"You'll tell them yourself," Aziraphale argues, but the demon is already disappearing into the night.


	14. Higham, 1860 AD

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one feels too short to put up as usual - that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it. Not just that I'm impatient at all. So I'll probably put the next chapter up tonight. Enjoy!

**Higham, 1860 AD**

Aziraphale stands at some distance and watches as the flames lick higher into the sky. He can't help feeling disappointed; he has travelled all the way from London to try to secure some fragment of personal correspondence for his shop - for posterity, given the popularity of the author - and there it all goes, up in smoke.

A familiar presence makes itself known behind him, and all his disappointment evaporates like ink on a bonfire.

"Crowley," he murmurs, making no attempt to conceal his smile as he turns. "What are you doing here?"

"Oh, you know. Spreading paranoia. You never know who you can trust."

"Spreading- Crowley! Is this your doing?"

"Hm? No. I'm just here to mess with Hastur - don't worry, he's gone," he adds as Aziraphale takes a hasty step away from him. "Fire's probably his idea, though. I suppose someone should apologise."

"Hell doesn't apologise," Aziraphale points out, and Crowley huffs.

"Well, true. Still. It's terrible to miss out on something you so desperately want."

There's something off about him, Aziraphale thinks - perhaps he's experiencing the same rush of panic that Aziraphale had felt sixty years ago, when Gabriel had almost caught Crowley in his bookshop. It sounds as though Aziraphale has had a similar narrow escape. 

"I wouldn't go that far," he counters mildly, "just a whim, really, to try to get one of his letters as a keepsake for future generations."

"Ah, yes. _Future generations._ Are they really going to care, though?" Crowley scoffs. "I mean, _please, sir, I want some more_ \- he's not exactly Shakespeare, is he? _What's in a name,_ now that's good."

"I thought you preferred the funny ones." Aziraphale shrugs. "Regardless, people adore his stories. I've had so many enquiries - I had hoped to secure some of these for posterity." And, admittedly, as a diversion to distract people from trying to buy Aziraphale's _books._

"Too late. Well, he'll write more, I suppose. What do you think he'll call his next characters?" There's a forced sort of casual tone to Crowley's voice, which probably means he intends to influence the man in that regard and is fishing for ideas. Perhaps Aziraphale will find one of his aliases slipped between the pages one day. He pretends not to notice the demon's strange behaviour.

"Oh, something odd, I imagine. Why do you ask?"

"Oh, just thinking about names. Funny, isn't it? You know someone's name and you think you know them. Write it on an envelope and the letter should find them. Humans reckon you can even use it to gain power over someone like me. Quite a lot in a name, if you really think about it."

They stand in silence for a few minutes, watching the crackling flames.

"I wonder why he's burning them," Aziraphale says at last, because Crowley is in a strange, reflective mood and he doesn't quite know what to say about it.

"Everyone has secrets, angel, things they won't even tell their oldest friends. Don't you keep anything from me?"

 _I love you,_ Aziraphale thinks, before he can get his brain under control, _but you know that. I don't hide it from you. Have I ever told you? It doesn't matter. Surely you must know._

"Of course not," he tells him warmly, and Crowley nods stiffly.

"That's what _I_ thought." He touches his hat and turns to walk away.

"Oh, are you leaving? I thought we might-"

"Things to do, angel. Got some intelligence from Hastur, as unlikely as that sounds, and I need to work out what to do with it."

"Well, perhaps I can help-"

"Not this time, angel."

And Crowley strides off over the horizon, leaving Aziraphale to watch the fire burn down to nothing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> EDIT: If you're playing along in the Historical References game, this is an especially tiny and obscure one: when I looked up things that happened in the mid-1800s, I learned that in 1860, Charles Dickens burned all his letters (to/from a mistress, I believe). Crowley compares a quote from Oliver Twist ("Please, sir, I want some more") to the one from Romeo and Juliet.


	15. London, 1862 AD

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here's another short one. Sorry this story is something of an emotional rollercoaster - I hope it will eventually be worth it! At least this time I can blame canon. Enjoy!
> 
> (Also, I've just gone through and added information on the historical references in this fic to the ends of the corresponding chapters, for those of you who are interested and/or confused.)

**London, 1862 AD**

Crowley's lips are pressed into a tight, thin line when Aziraphale looks up from the scrap of paper. He looks as though he's spoiling for a fight, which is very wise, because he's about to get one.

"Out of the question."

"Why not?"

"It would destroy you. I'm not bringing you a suicide pill, Crowley."

"That's not what I want it for. Just… insurance."

_Holy Water._ It's a demon's death sentence, and Aziraphale doesn't know how Crowley can even ask him to risk his demon being near it. If Crowley used it on himself - or dropped it… _It would destroy me._

"I'm not an idiot, Crowley. Do you know what trouble I'd get into if they knew I'd been fraternising? It's completely out of the question." Crowley has always taken risks with himself, but never with Aziraphale. Perhaps appealing to his protective instincts might convince him - but Crowley's hung up on the details, as usual. 

"Fraternising?" It's not the right word for what they are, what they've done, but Crowley's right; ducks must have ears.

"Whatever you wish to call it. I do not think there is any point in discussing it further."

"I have lots of other people to _fraternise_ with, angel." And oh, that stings. It's not as though they've ever talked about being exclusive, but the thought of Crowley replacing him _hurts,_ it tears at his heart. _But at least he'd be alive._

"Of course you do."

"I don't need you," Crowley insists.

"The feeling is mutual. Obviously."

"Obviously."

Aziraphale turns to storm away - before he can beg Crowley's forgiveness and promise him the means of his own destruction - but one more argument presents itself. He turns back.

"You _are_ needed, though," he points out. "You know who I mean."

"I do - no thanks to you. And they don't need me; they don't _know_ me - they'd attack me on sight."

"You can't be sure of that," Aziraphale snaps, frustrated beyond belief that Crowley is still blaming him for the absence in what should have been _their family_. He did the best he could; he always has. He's suffering too, and now Crowley wants him to risk losing his beloved demon as well as his child.

"Can't I?" Crowley gives him what Aziraphale suspects is supposed to be a _meaningful_ glare, then storms off.

Perhaps he means to explain himself in private, later; Aziraphale waits in the bookshop for weeks, but Crowley never comes.


	16. London, 1904 AD

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't yell at me, I swear this is going to get less angsty, you just have to wait a bit longer... In the meantime, enjoy!

**London, 1904 AD**

Aziraphale could swear it's Crowley he senses popping into the shop; who else would just materialise between the bookcases like that? He clatters down the stairs from the flat he's been trying to tidy, demands for explanations already on the tip of his tongue, and there stands-

"Gabriel." He does his best to hide his disappointment, sparing a tight smile for Gabriel's Ninth Choir associate. He's fairly sure their name is Jorael, but he's also fairly sure he wouldn't remember that if they hadn't been the one to chase Crowley down that time. Best to pretend he doesn't know them. "What brings you to my humble shop?"

"Aziraphale! Nothing bad, don't worry. Just your ten-year warning, as a courtesy; Europe's heading for a big war. Really big - by human standards, anyway."

"I see." Aziraphale frowns. "Am I to try to prevent it? Or… does Heaven have a side in this conflict?"

"No, no. Completely human conflict, couldn't care less. But it _is_ going to be messy and inconvenient, so we're going to need any outstanding reports in before it all-" - he makes a clicking noise with his mouth - "-kicks off. We're cancelling all Earth visits for… oh, thirty, forty years should do it. Fifty, at most. Jorael here gets one of the last trips for now."

"Oh, I see." Aziraphale is torn between the desire to stay and protect humanity, the urge to warn Crowley, and the temptation to take advantage of the excuse to return Upstairs and seek out their child. Fortunately, he doesn't have to make the choice for himself. "Will you be recalling me to Heaven?"

"No. You keep up the good work here, Aziraphale."

If he doesn't ask now, he won't get another chance for up to fifty years.

"May I ask you something in confidence?"

Gabriel heaves a long-suffering sigh. "Is there really any point in having this conversation over and over again, Aziraphale?"

"I think so," he insists, and the archangel rolls his eyes.

"Jorael, pay no attention to this. Think of something more interesting you could be doing while Aziraphale takes up our valuable time." The lesser angel nods and turns their face towards the bookshelves, apparently engrossed in reading the titles on the spines, as Gabriel turns his attention back to Aziraphale.

"What is it, as if I couldn't guess?"

"I just- I would like to see the child. Even just once. I held them in my arms in Anathoth and I wondered who they would become; I don't see the harm in setting my curiosity to rest."

Gabriel glances warily at their witness, who is now wandering between the bookcases, running their finger along the wood of the shelves. Satisfied that they're unobserved, he leans in towards Aziraphale. 

"Listen, Aziraphale. It's not that I don't get it. The Almighty gave you a gift, a tiny scrap of attention, and you want to cling to it. But the child is Heaven's, not yours. They're always going to have duties to perform, just like you. There's no question of arranging a meeting."

"Then- then tell me _something_ about them. Please. I don't even know- they could still be a baby, for all I know, and you're talking about _duties_. This is a unique opportunity to learn about ourselves, about angels. So please. If nothing else, could you just tell me how old they are now?"

Gabriel huffs dramatically. It's definitely more endearing when Crowley does it. "And if I tell you, you promise not to ask me anything about them again."

"I promise, Gabriel." It's not the question he wants answered most - what's their name, what are their duties, are they good, are they kind - but if it's the only answer he'll get, he'll take it at this point. Some crumb to offer Crowley is all he can hope for; _our child is learning to walk,_ or _our child is fully fledged,_ or _our child has joined a choir as a real, grown up angel._

"Well, in that case, I can tell you. They're…" he pauses as if to build suspense, and Aziraphale sees the glint of victory in those violet eyes. He realises he's been tricked just a moment before Gabriel speaks. "One thousand, eight hundred and seventy years old. Thought you'd know that!" Gabriel punches him in the arm, and although his body language suggests it's intended to be playful, it hurts. "You're welcome. Jorael! Time to go."

The lesser angel hurries out from among the bookshelves nearer the window, wide-eyed with panic at the thought of keeping Gabriel waiting. Their gaze briefly slides over Aziraphale's face, but if they notice the tears threatening in his eyes, they don't react. Perhaps, even after all these Earth visits, they haven't grasped what tears mean. Perhaps, like Gabriel, they just don't care.

"Enjoy your war, Aziraphale. Don't forget about those reports!"

They vanish, and Aziraphale finds himself sobbing in the middle of his shop, centuries of uncertainty and longing all spilling over at last. He almost wishes Crowley could be there with him, but then he realises that for the first time in his entire existence he's glad the demon isn't around. If he was there, holding him, rubbing soothing circles into Aziraphale's back and pretending he wasn't, then Aziraphale would have to tell him what he's done. That he has traded away any hope of seeing their child, of knowing _anything_ about them, for the one fact they already knew.

It's best that Crowley doesn't know. At least the demon can still cling to hope.


	17. London, 1941 AD

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just finished writing the last *proper* chapter of this, so I thought I'd stick this one up early and then go and work on the other WIPs I've been neglecting. Maybe I can update one of those tonight! No promises though.
> 
> Right, warnings here, First of all, NSFW. Some significant mention of ejaculate, specifically, which is sort of necessary because of Crowley's issues BUT if that's your squick and you don't want to read it you can skip the paragraph beginning "He opens them again..." (right after mention of an air-raid siren).
> 
> Also discussion of pregnancy, specifically Crowley's, with very brief references to the possibility of abortion or miscarriage. To skip those references, skip the paragraph beginning "Crowley tenses for a moment, then pats the seat...".
> 
> Anyway. I hope you enjoy this one!

**London, 1941 AD**

The bookshop is dark and silent as Crowley pulls the car up outside. For a moment, they both stay in their seats, just as dark, just as silent.

It's Aziraphale who speaks first.

"How are your feet?"

"Sore," Crowley admits. "Quick question; does fallen masonry make water less holy?"

"I vanished it just before the bomb hit," Aziraphale tells him firmly, "water _splashes_. Let's not argue about this tonight."

"Right. Yeah. Probably for the best."

"Will you come in and let me take care of your feet?"

"You don't have to do that, angel."

"But I'm going to. Come _in,_ Crowley."

He gets out of the car and lets himself into the bookshop without looking back. Crowley will follow him, or he won't; it's a pleasant surprise to turn as he reaches the backroom and see Crowley relocking the front door behind him.

"Take a seat," he instructs, and goes to fetch a big tub of water. With the help of a miracle or two, it doesn't take long; he carries it through and sets it down in front of Crowley before the latter has even finished getting his shoes off. He kneels down and reaches out to cover the demon's hands with his own as he starts on the socks, and Crowley stills. "Let me," Aziraphale commands gently, and carefully peels the socks from Crowley's blistered feet. Crowley winces, but doesn't complain, and for a moment Aziraphale is back in Anathoth, blood staining the straw and Crowley trying so hard to stay silent.

Slowly, gingerly, he guides first one foot, then the other, into the tub, rubbing gently at the reddened areas. Before he can second-guess himself, he allows himself to slump forward, resting his forehead on Crowley's lap, just above his knee.

"Angel." The demon lets out a low hiss before continuing. "Feelssss good."

"I'm glad." Somehow, it's easier to talk to Crowley's leg than his face. "You shouldn't have done it, you know."

"Done what?" Crowley's voice is dreamy, as if he's drifting off.

"Come into the church. It could have killed you. Really _killed_ you."

"You're welcome." Well, that's woken him up. "I'll just let you get shot by Nazis next time, shall I?"

"Yes!" He turns his face upwards, chin resting on Crowley's knee. "Yes, because if I'm discorporated in a church it's inconvenient. If _you_ are, I don't know what would happen. I don't know how to make it any clearer, Crowley; I can't lose you. I couldn't bear it."

"Don't be stupid, I was fine. Try to do one n- helpful thing, and I get told off for it-"

"I _am_ grateful," Aziraphale assures him, "which is one reason I'm on my knees at your feet."

"Just one reason?" Crowley quirks an eyebrow, and Aziraphale lets go of one foot for just long enough to tap him lightly on the knee in reprimand. 

"Mind out of the gutter," he warns him. "And, for that matter, feet out of the water so I can see how they are."

It takes a little more bathing, and a thorough drying, and then just a touch of miraculous healing, but at last Aziraphale is satisfied with the state of Crowley's feet. He runs a finger absent-mindedly over the soft scales there, and Crowley shivers.

"Tickles," he complains, and Aziraphale beams at him. He's in no hurry to get up, though, content to kneel at Crowley's feet a little longer.

"I owe you an apology," he admits, after a moment's pause to gather his courage, "I made a mistake and let Gabriel trick me."

"Trick you?"

"I promised I wouldn't ask about our child again, if he told me one thing about them. And he told me their age. Just… the one thing we already knew, and now we'll never know anything else. I'm so sorry, Crowley."

Crowley stares down at him for a moment, and Aziraphale has to avert his eyes.

"The one thing," Crowley repeats, his voice flat and hollow. "You're sure you can't tell me anything else?"

"I'm sorry." Aziraphale shakes his head. "And I daren't break my promise, not when Heaven has them." _And whose fault is that?_

"No. No, I suppose not." Crowley's hand comes up to tangle in Aziraphale's curls, scratching gently at his scalp, and Aziraphale wants to just melt away. "If you could tell me anything, I know you would."

"Of course, my dear." He nudges Crowley's legs apart, just a little, just enough to press his face to the demon's inner thigh, making him gasp. "May I ask you something?"

"Ngk. Anything you like."

"Why didn't you tell me earlier? Before Anathoth, I mean. You must have realised you were, well, expecting."

Crowley tenses for a moment, then pats the seat beside him.

"Up, then, angel. We can't have this discussion while you're on your knees." Aziraphale rises, perches himself on the sofa beside Crowley. He looks worried, so Aziraphale reaches out to squeeze his hand.

"I'm only curious, my dear. You don't have to explain yourself-"

"I _didn't_ realise, for quite a while." He shrugs. "I'd never tried on an Eve corporation for very long before, I thought it was all a part of the _women's troubles_ people kept mentioning. Then someone congratulated me, asked me if my husband was pleased- I panicked, angel. I didn't know what to think. Part of me wanted to find you and tell you, part of me was afraid to. Once, a woman found me crying on the edge of the desert and offered me a _remedy_ , but I was scared of that, too. We'd both seen so many things go wrong, by then."

"Oh, Crowley."

"Besides, I didn't have time to think it through - I was so busy trying to stay a few steps ahead of Hell, because _they_ couldn't find out. And part of me was convinced I'd lose it anyway. Opposing entities, I thought we'd cancel each other out somehow and it wouldn't hurt you if you didn't know. Or you might be angry if I got rid of it, or because I hadn't yet, or because I kept it a secret for so long-"

"I wouldn't have been. I… I don't think I could have been." It certainly would have frightened him; he'd been that much more dedicated to Heaven, back then. But he couldn't have blamed Crowley. 

"Before I could figure it all out, I went into labour. I thought I was going to discorporate, angel. And when the baby was born they just screamed and screamed until I put them in the manger and backed off. An _angel,_ how was I supposed to deal with that? I think I was trying to gather the energy to try to contact you when you appeared."

"But- you tried to hide them."

"Panicking again. And I thought maybe I should _warn_ you before you saw- but then- then… Actually, it's all a bit hazy after that."

"I'm not surprised. You very nearly discorporated."

They sit in silence for a while after that, listening to British planes passing overhead, each lost in their own memories. Aziraphale doesn't know what Crowley might be thinking, but he can't quite shake off the image of his dear demon lying in the straw, pale as death, tears still wet on her cheeks.

"Anthony," he remembers suddenly. " _Anthony_ J Crowley, wasn't it?"

"Yeah." He seems to snap back to the present. "Been using variations on it for years. Centuries. Easier, when the humans expect more names."

"And if a twelve-year-old could remember it…? Aziraphale teases. Crowley laughs.

"Started using it not long after that, yeah. First thing that came to mind."

"You were so very fond of those children."

"Just proud of the chaos we caused," Crowley counters, but then he shrugs. Apparently it's a night for being vulnerable and honest. "But… for a few weeks, there, I got to play at being a mother. It was some consolation, I suppose. They were good boys."

"And what does the J stand for, really? Is it so embarrassing you couldn't say it in front of the Nazis?"

He expects Crowley to laugh and tell him; after all the emotional vulnerability of the last few minutes, he expects it to be an easy answer, a change of subject towards lighter things. Instead, something dark flashes across Crowley's face, a hint of what could be anger or shame or just pent-up arousal, because the next thing he knows Crowley's lips are on his. Then teeth, nipping gently at his neck, a slightly forked tongue flickering beneath his ear - and Crowley sinks to his knees at Aziraphale's feet.

"It's just a J," he repeats, "I'd rather see what _you_ stand for." His hands are at Aziraphale's fly, asking permission, and Aziraphale is beginning to stand for him already. A hasty nod, clever fingers pulling his Effort into the open, and then Crowley's mouth is on him.

"Oh," Aziraphale manages, utterly failing to be eloquent with Crowley between his legs. "Oh, I missed you."

"Funny time to say it," Crowley grumbles, then licks a hot stripe along Aziraphale's length before he can worry that he's offended him. "Might think you only missed my mouth."

"No, I- ah, all of you- oh- _hate_ when you're gone." Crowley doesn't answer, except by hollowing his cheeks and swallowing Aziraphale down until he sees stars. He almost doesn't manage to warn the demon in time.

"Crowley- I'm afraid I'm- if you want to stop- has to be now-" But Crowley only eases off a little, keeps the tip of him on his tongue and uses his hand to finish the job. Aziraphale comes with a hastily-stifled yell - he doesn't want to be mistaken for an air-raid siren - and closes his eyes.

He opens them again, mere seconds later, to find Crowley looking conflicted. It's clear what the problem is.

"My dear, please don't feel obliged to swallow that. I won't be offended if you spit it out." He feels as though it shouldn't need saying, but judging by Crowley's relieved expression as he turns away and spits, miracling away the residue for good measure, it _does_ need to be said. Aziraphale makes a half-hearted attempt to drag Crowley up onto the seat with him and finds himself too boneless to manage it; Crowley joins him anyway so Aziraphale can stroke his cheek.

"Don't laugh," Crowley begins, but Aziraphale already knows what he's going to say.

"Because you don't want to take any chances? Darling, it's quite understandable."

"'S ridiculous," Crowley argues, "that's not how it works."

"Doesn't matter," Aziraphale assures him. "Would you mind terribly if I returned the favour?"

_"Mind-?"_

By the time Crowley staggers out to his car again, tottering about like a newborn foal on legs that seem to have forgotten they're supposed to contain bones, Aziraphale thinks he's earned the right to feel a little smug. He's left alone in the bookshop with only a pile of recently-rescued prophecy books and the lingering taste of Crowley for company, but that's all right.

It takes nearly an hour for the sorrow of parting to creep in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edit: Ah, forgot to add my reference again. When they mention _those children_ they're talking about the boys they rescued in chapter 10 (London, 1483) - which is to say, The Princes in the Tower.


	18. London, 1967 AD

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You already know how this one goes. This time I can't be blamed for angst.
> 
> A quick note on Polari: it was a dialect or cant used by the gay community (among other marginalised groups, I think) when the law was still very firmly against them. This scene takes place the year homosexuality was legalised, so Polari was still spoken more widely than it is now. I haven't attempted to write it myself, but I firmly believe Aziraphale would have been at least semi-fluent. So this is a translation of the imagined conversation. 
> 
> Enjoy!

**London, 1967 AD**

Of all the ridiculous notions, Crowley is putting together a _caper_. The less law-abiding sections of the community in Soho - including those portions of it who've done nothing wrong in their lives, and whose actions have in fact recently been legalised - talk of little else these days, torn between disapproval and fascination by the target of the heist.

"Robbing a church, though," Aziraphale overhears at a discreet gentleman's club he frequents. "Not sure how I feel about that." They're slipping in and out of Polari, but that doesn't stop Aziraphale from eavesdropping.

"That's all right - they don't know how they feel about you."

"The thieves?"

"The church. Keep up, love. Ooh, but that one in the dark glasses, he's a bit of all right, isn't he?"

"Bit skinny for my tastes. Oh, but I bet he's flexible. You can tell, the way he walks."

"You'd scare the life out of him, Marion, you eat men like that alive-"

"-and so what if I do? They enjoy it."

"Nah, nothing doing, I reckon. All the handsome ones are straight until proven otherwise."

"No way. He's got to be one of us, God's not that cruel."

"Yes, He bloody well is. Straight or committed, I reckon."

"Practically married," Aziraphale interrupts, smiling gently, "very devoted, decidedly not available, I'm afraid. His, er, partner might have to strangle him, though, so perhaps you could tell me where I might find him?"

When he walks away, having been furnished with an address, he can hear the gossip mill starting up again behind him.

"Ooh, _he's_ a dark horse, isn't he?"

"I've always said so."

"If he doesn't want his church robber any more, I'll have him."

"If he doesn't want his church robber, _he_ can have _me._ "

"They must be bloody beautiful together."

That's extremely gratifying, but Aziraphale doesn't have time to dwell on it.

Getting Holy Water is easy - he's an angel, after all - but then he faces the problem of making it as safe as possible for Crowley to handle. He settles, in the end, on a Thermos flask; even if Crowley stabbed something through the side of it, he'd have to pierce through two or more layers for the water to escape.

_Or just unscrew the lid._

He hands it over in Crowley's car, on a dark street full of bright lights, and Crowley asks if he should thank him. The thought turns his stomach.

"Better not."

"Can I drop you anywhere?"

"No, thank you." He _wants_ to stay with Crowley, he wants to make sure he doesn't do anything stupid, but he can't bear to look at him. He can't face him, knowing that he has just handed him the means of his own ultimate destruction. Besides, if he stays with him tonight, he'll only be delaying the fear until tomorrow. If he's not careful, he won't be able to leave him at all.

Crowley's face falls, and Aziraphale feels his heart drop in sympathy.

"Oh, don't look so disappointed. Perhaps one day we could… I don't know… Have a picnic. Or dine at the Ritz." _Be here to see it,_ he tries to say without words, _stay with me._

"I'll give you a lift," Crowley insists. "Anywhere you want to go." But the Holy Water sits between them, mocking him. _Crowley has an exit plan._ Crowley is prepared for… for something, some terrible day when destroying or being destroyed might be better than the alternative. Aziraphale isn't prepared for that, not at all. He doesn't think he can ever be prepared for a world without Crowley.

"You go too fast for me, Crowley."

They both regard the Thermos warily, all too aware that its contents could destroy them, and then Aziraphale forces himself to stand. To leave the car. To leave Crowley.


	19. London, 2008 AD

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Couldn't leave you at _you go too fast for me_ for too long. So... enjoy!

**London, 2008 AD**

Crowley spends a full day wooing Aziraphale, trying to convince him to help stop the world from ending. He takes him to the park, to the Ritz, plies him with wine and even, as darkness begins to fall, mentions the possibility of combining quite extraordinary amounts of alcohol with a late-night picnic.

"Come back to the shop, my dear," Aziraphale offers instead; Crowley's temptations are all well and good, but there are some things neither of them can say in public, out in the world, where even ducks have ears.

He means to say some of those things, the moment they're safely inside the shop, but he pours the wine instead. Before long, they're getting on nicely with that _quite extraordinary amounts_ business, which is when Crowley sweeps his sunglasses from his face and sprawls across the sofa, babbling about dolphins. It's a problem, because he's utterly entrancing, with no inhibitions or posturing or bluster - just Crowley, making an impassioned case for saving the world that somehow seems to encompass both the sentience of sea creatures and Aziraphale's fondness for sushi. Aziraphale tries to contribute to the conversation, but at some point he finds himself standing, instead, advancing on Crowley as he gets all _dramatic_ and flails his way around the room making silly noises.

The noises and the flailing stop as Aziraphale gets close.

"A-angel? What's that look for?"

"What look?"

"Like I'm a crêpe. Or a… a…"

"Delicacy?" Aziraphale offers. "I'm sorry, my dear. I don't mean to be untoward."

"No, it's…"

"I haven't seen you in, what, forty years? I thought- well, I was concerned- and now here you are, you see."

"Here I am," Crowley mumbles, sounding a little breathless. Aziraphale is so close, though, that he can see his chest heaving as those beautiful golden eyes gaze trustingly into his.

"Right here, and I shouldn't try to kiss you."

"No?"

"No," Aziraphale confirms, "we should- should talk. 'S the end of the world. And we're drunk."

"Don't have to _stay_ drunk."

"Shouldn't kiss you. Don't have time. Important."

"No," Crowley agrees, and Aziraphale would never dare to describe the demon's expression as a pout but the thought does cross his mind.

"May I?" He asks instead, and Crowley drags him closer.

"Yesssssss."

Time ceases to have meaning the moment his lips touch Crowley's, and he thinks the concept of space must become similarly insignificant, because before he knows what's happening, Crowley is on the floor and Aziraphale is on top of him, the demon's hands in his hair as they kiss. They kiss for what might be hours, as drunk on each other's presence as on the wine they've been drinking. Crowley grinds his hips upwards with a groan, and Aziraphale instinctively thrusts down to meet him, and they have to break apart for a moment to catch their breath.

_I want this always,_ Aziraphale realises, _I don't want it to ever end._

"Wait, no," Crowley gasps, "we've gotta- sober up, 's no time."

"No time-?"

" _Ssssober_ up, angel." Crowley grimaces, and Aziraphale reluctantly obeys. The awful taste and momentary headache are swiftly followed by the realisation that he still has Crowley pinned beneath him; he scrambles backwards, stammering out an apology, but Crowley is already shaking his head. "Had to stop before we got carried away, angel, the world's ending. At least, it will if we don't stop it."

"We can't _stop_ it, Crowley, it's the Great Plan." It's terrible, of course it is, but he can't go against the will of the Almighty, no matter how persuasive Crowley is.

Crowley stands and makes his way back over to the sofa - which would, perhaps, have been a more sensible location for all that kissing - so Aziraphale follows his lead and drops into his usual chair. His wily adversary is probably about to try to persuade him again, and Aziraphale will need to have his defences ready.

"Remind me about the Great Plan, angel. How does it go?"

"Well, the Earth ends. The seas boil, the kraken rises, all those things you were just saying. Gorillas, and so forth. Very sad, but necessary."

"Yeah, if you say so- but then what?"

"A war." Aziraphale's voice cracks on the word. "Between Heaven and Hell."

"And we'll all be there, squaring off across the battlefield, right? You. Me. Every demon, and every angel."

"Well… yes. I'm rather hoping we can avoid actually fighting one another-"

" _Every_ angel, thrown into a war. Not just the archangels and the principalities, not just the old ones, but _all_ of them. Including-"

"Our child," Aziraphale realises belatedly. "And you'd have to stand against them." It's unimaginable, unthinkable; Crowley would rather let himself be cut down than risk harming their child. If they go to war, Heaven against Hell, Crowley stands less than no chance. Crowley will _die_.

"So you see why we have to stop it," Crowley tells him seriously.

"But- I _can't_ help you. If I do- if they catch me working against the Great Plan, they know how they can hurt me. What if they do something to our child?" _Crowley will die if you don't help him._

"Then we won't get caught. Angel, we can't let them throw our child into a war. _I_ won't fight them, you know I won't, but the rest of Hell-"

"Oh. Oh, no." If the world ends, the two beings Aziraphale cares for more than anything - that he _loves,_ that he wants to _protect -_ will both be in terrible danger.

A horrible thought strikes him, tumbles past his lips before he can stop it.

"If only the Antichrist hadn't made it." It's visceral, the disgust he feels as he says it; the Antichrist is an infant, a helpless baby, and-

"I thought about it," Crowley mumbles guiltily, "but he's just a kid." Then those beautiful eyes of his widen and he looks up at Aziraphale. "It's all about the influences, really."

And that's how they decide to become godfathers.


	20. London, 2014 AD

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this didn't go up earlier, I got a bit sidetracked and had some work to do. Apologies to those waiting for Vacant Property to update - prophecies are hard.
> 
> This chapter is another NSFW one, and there is a hint of [sex-related] threat (not between Aziraphale and Crowley, and not really a danger to the non-human it applies to) and mentions of a gun so just be warned of that. Also, Crowley is dealing with some lingering trauma over the Anathoth era. Them's your warnings.
> 
> Enjoy!

**London, 2014 AD**

Aziraphale doesn't see as much of Crowley as he'd like, despite them both working at the Dowlings', both trying to lead Warlock away from temptation. When he _does_ get to talk to the demon, it's usually on a bus, pretending not to know one another.

Warlock's sixth birthday, however, sees the boy flying back to the States to see his grandparents, and the staff are left to their own devices for two weeks.

Crowley sleeps for all of the first day, and most of the second, while Aziraphale goes on with his duties. On the second evening, she appears on the doorstep of Aziraphale's 'cottage', which was little more than a garden shed before he took up residence in it.

"Lydia's partner is visiting," she tells him with a grimace, "loudly and vigorously, and when I went downstairs to get away from the noise, one of the Secret Service lot suggested we make our own noise, him and me."

"What? Which one?"

"I don't know. Stan. In my head, they're all Stan. Secret Service Stan, the Secret Service Man. That's what Warlock calls them." She sighs. "Anyway, I thought… well, I'd rather make noise with you."

"Oh. _Oh,_ well, that's very gratifying-"

"Or not," she adds, hurriedly, and he realises he's made a mess of things. Too formal, not enthusiastic enough - too busy trying to think of the appropriate words to actually say them. "Maybe we could just talk? Since I'm here, I mean."

"No!" He knows at once that he's made another mistake. "I mean- yes- of course, come in and- and talk, or- or make noise. If you like."

"Well, I wouldn't want to impose-"

"Come _in_ , Crowley."

She crosses the threshold with a coquettish smile, and turns in a slow circle to take in her surroundings. At least, she's pretending to take in the surroundings, but Aziraphale has a sneaking suspicion that she's really just trying to show him all her best angles. All of her angles are good, in Aziraphale's opinion.

"I like what you've done with the place."

"Thank you." He's not sure what to say, what Crowley wants. "I like what you've done with… er, you."

"Oh, really?" Her lips quirk up a little further, her smile a little wider. "Nanny does it for you, does she, angel?"

" _You,_ ah, do it for me." Aziraphale can't take his eyes off her, now she's all but told him to look, now they have the privacy to indulge such fancies. "If you'd be more comfortable-"

"I'm comfortable if you are, angel." She turns away from him, bends deliberately over the back of a chair to set her handbag down; she's not as plump in the seat area as Aziraphale is, but his eye is drawn to the stretch of her skirt over her rear all the same.

"Crowley," he manages weakly, "if you want us to talk, you might like to sit down."

"And if I want to make noise?" She's straightening up even as she teases him, looking over her shoulder to see if he wants her to stop, and before he can think he has his hands on her hips, moulding himself to the shape of her back.

"I can help," Aziraphale promises, "just tell me what you want and it's yours."

"Just take me," Crowley murmurs, and his lips pause on her neck. "Right here, push my skirt up and-"

"That doesn't sound very comfortable for you, my dear."

"Don't need comfortable. Just a good seeing-to." Aziraphale hesitates and she sighs, turning in his arms. "You don't want that."

"That's not it and you know it. Crowley, I don't want you to be uncomfortable."

"Uncomfortable is being propositioned by a man wearing a gun, angel. Bending me over a chair and fucking me in my best clothes, that's nothing."

"You deserve more than nothing," Aziraphale tells her quietly. "But if that's what you want… be clear with me. Where- how- ah, I only mean that I know you have concerns-"

"Ashtoreth doesn't," Crowley tells him, but Aziraphale's sure she's only kissing his neck so she doesn't have to look him in the eyes. "I've decided. She just wants to be the gardener's bitch."

"Crowley," he admonishes quietly, "I don't think it works like that."

"Of course it does. Demons don't want gentle."

"You did, once."

"And look where it got me."

Nanny Ashtoreth is very beautiful, and an insistent part of Aziraphale is very keen to give her exactly what she's asking for. She can _feel_ that part, her hand slipping down to caress it through his trousers. He can't stifle a low groan of pleasure, but he holds himself together with difficulty. It's important. She's important.

"No, Crowley. I mean- not _no,_ I'm not saying no. But we have time. Can we talk about this?"

"If we talk about it, I might change my mind." It's mumbled into his shoulder, and Aziraphale sighs.

"That's exactly why we _should_ , my dear."

They sit awkwardly on the sofa, and Aziraphale reaches out to take both of Crowley's hands in his.

"Are you all right?"

"'M fine, angel."

" _Uncomfortable is being propositioned by a man with a gun,_ " he reminds her gently, "are you certain everything's-?"

"It was just on his belt; he probably didn't even think about it," Crowley tells him, "and I'm a demon. I was never in danger."

"But it bothered you."

"I'm tired of being afraid, angel!" It explodes out of her with more force than she's expecting, it seems; her eyes widen, but she goes on. "I want to be able to do the things I enjoy - I _enjoyed_ it, in Golgotha - and not worry about the risks. And Ashtoreth- having a character to hide behind- I thought it might help."

Aziraphale waits a few seconds for her breathing to even out before he responds to that.

"If… _if_ you want this… we need to talk it through first."

"It's not like it's- like it's some kind of hard kink. We don't need to _negotiate-_ "

"I would like to. If you don't mind. I will not be responsible for making things worse."

"Angel-"

"Crowley. All I'm asking is that you tell me, in your own time, what you want and how I can make you feel safe. I'll tell you if there's anything _I'm_ not happy to do. And then, if you'd like, you can even leave and come back in again, if you want to recapture that spontaneous feeling."

"You wanted to touch me the moment I walked in, didn't you?"

"Well. Yes."

"Good. That works for me."

"And then…?"

Twenty minutes later, Nanny Ashtoreth knocks on Aziraphale's door. He takes a moment to straighten out his clothes - he refuses to dress as Francis inside his own cottage, so he's in his waistcoat - before going to answer it.

"I want to make noise with you," she tells him, and slips past him into the house.

"Oh, do come in, Ashtoreth."

She turns that slow circle again and this time he doesn't have to hold back; his eyes roam her body hungrily, taking in the tight fit of her blouse and the way her skirt clings to the lines of her body.

"Like what you see?"

"Very much." It's barely a growl, and then she's facing him again, and he's kissing her hungrily, one hand on her hip and the other - he blushes despite himself - on her gorgeous backside. He squeezes gently and she laughs, the sound echoing between their mouths.

"Let me put my handbag down before you start manhandling me. Didn't anybody ever teach you manners?"

He knows his cue, here; he waits for her to step away and lean, ridiculously, over the back of the armchair before pinning her to it, pressing against her from behind. "You wanted to make some noise."

"Maybe you should give me a _reason_ to make some noise."

He kisses her neck, then, teases and nips and leaves marks for her to miracle away later or wear as a memento until they fade. One hand stays on her hip as the other moves to lift her skirt, to slip under the fabric and trace the lace at the tops of her stockings, the smooth skin of her thighs, more lace barely covering her bottom. He follows the fabric down and forward to where he finds heat.

"You're so wet," he murmurs, surprised by the swiftness of her arousal, and she presses back against him by way of response.

"And you're hard."

There's a catch in her voice that he's fairly certain is down to the drift of his fingers, but he pauses all the same.

"OK?" She nods urgently. "Can I take these off?"

"I wish you would."

He pulls the flimsy material down her legs and finds himself on his knees behind her, can't quite resist the urge to press tiny kisses to the backs of her knees through the stockings.

"Angel," she sighs, "get back up here, will you?"

When he straightens up, so does she, just for a moment, reaching back to drag him into a kiss. He slips a hand under her skirt again, tracing featherlight touches over her hips, waiting for confirmation that he can go further, touch more.

"Beautiful," he whispers, and regrets it almost instantly. He expects Crowley to snap at him - it's a deviation from the less emotionally-charged scene they'd agreed on - but she only shivers and leans forward again, offering him better access. He takes full advantage of it, nudging her legs apart and carefully, tenderly opening her up with his fingers.

And then - Aziraphale startles a little at the sight - she holds up a condom in its square foil packet. They've discussed this, it was one of the first things Aziraphale wanted to establish, and Crowley has said that she trusts it. That she wants him, putting her faith in the scant protection of a flimsy piece of latex. Somehow, he still can't believe it when she offers him the packet.

"Here. Go ahead." He has to press closer to her to retrieve it, knows she feels his arousal press against her leg - and then a thought occurs to him. In this position, the way they are, she can't know for sure that he's wearing it. She can't be sure she's safe.

"Crowley," he murmurs, "turn around, just a moment."

She turns, a challenge in her eyes, and he places the packet back in her hand.

"Help me with it?"

"Of course you don't know how a condom works," she grumbles under her breath, but her hands shake a little as she opens his fly, then the packet, and finally rolls the condom down over his length. He has to take a hasty breath as her fingers pass over him, and she smiles before she turns back around and settles herself over the back of the armchair. 

"Oh, how I want you," he whispers between her shoulder blades as he pushes her skirt up and out of the way.

"Go on, then. Preferably before the world ends."

Aziraphale knows why she wants it this way; she's too wound up about the physical act to try to cope with a painfully strong surge of romantic emotions, too. If telling herself that she's just a nanny giving into a sordid romp with a gardener will help, he can give her that. But he wishes, as he slowly presses into her, as the heat of her body welcomes him, that they could be face-to-face, that he could look into her golden eyes and silently tell her he loves her.

"Ohhhhh-" He almost stops, but it's a distinctly positive sounding noise. " _Yesss_ , angel, that's- oh, yeah, that's good." 

"Perfect," he murmurs, as his hips meet her thighs and he pauses to let her adjust, "you're perfect."

"Move," she whispers, and she doesn't have to say it twice.

Crowley comes undone first, with his hand working between her and the armchair, his hips finding a frantic rhythm as he mouths at her neck and shoulder. He wants to be all over her, to experience every part of her at once, but it's enough to feel her tremble beneath him, to feel the sudden pressure of her muscles tightening around him. He slows, easing her through her orgasm, and then he asks a question he dreads the answer to.

"Do you want me to pull out? I can- if you'd rather- I don't have to be inside you when I spend." It's not what they'd talked about, but Aziraphale wants to be absolutely certain that Crowley feels safe, and if she still has worries about getting pregnant-

"You're still wearing it?"

"Of course-"

"Then stay. Carry on. I want you to- I _want_ you to."

"You're sure?"

"Angel." She's peering at him over her shoulder, now, bright-eyed and breathless. He's not sure if she took her glasses off or if they fell. "I've spent a long time running away. You don't need to do it for me." Then she pushes her body back against him, teasing, deliberate, and it doesn't take him very long at all to lose control.

Once they've separated their bodies, disposed of the condom, and straightened their clothes, Aziraphale takes his demon to his bed. It's all he can do to stay upright long enough to get there; Crowley takes one look at him and shoves him down against the pillows.

"I know you don't sleep much, but. Sleep."

"Lie with me?" He offers, in lieu of a proper response, and she huffs before settling on the mattress beside him.

"Do you want me to tell you how _wonderful_ it was? How _marvellous?_ How irresistible your sexual magnetism is?" She rolls her eyes. "Well, I'm giddy enough to be honest, I suppose, so I'll give you that."

"Oh. Well, that's… that's very…" He can feel himself blushing. "Thank you. But… you're not worried? You feel all right?"

"Fine, angel. I feel good." She sighs wearily. "I suppose you'll want to cuddle, now."

"Would you mind?" But she's already resting her head on his chest, getting comfortable.

"I'll be gone when you wake up. Safer that way."

He knows that's true; it doesn't make it easy. "Stay until I'm sleeping?"

"You drive a hard bargain. Yeah, I'll stay."

He tries to stay awake as long as possible, gently running his hand through Crowley's hair, but eventually he must fall asleep. Perhaps it's his corporation protesting its earlier exertions, or perhaps a minor demonic miracle is involved; he'll never know, but he does know that when he wakes, Crowley is gone.


	21. London, 2018 AD

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No, _you_ forgot to post this earlier. Oops. Sorry.
> 
> Getting close to the end (of the world), now. Anyone nervous? I'd love to know what you all think might happen... Anyway, enjoy!

**London, 2018 AD**

The evening before Brother Francis' resignation takes effect, Aziraphale and Crowley lie in bed together for hours.

"Not long, now," Crowley murmurs. He's changed back into his more masculine shape and clothing, grumbling something about _sensible heels_ , and he looks desperately tired. Aziraphale would tell him to go to sleep, but they have so little time left together. Tonight might be his last chance to hold Crowley.

"No," he agrees quietly, "not long."

"Do you think we've done enough?"

"I suppose we'll find out."

"If we haven't… do you think they stand a chance?"

"Humanity?"

"You know full well who I mean."

"Mm." He does, but he definitely _doesn't_ want to answer the question. Crowley, however, likes answers.

"Well?"

"I hope it doesn't come to that."

"Oh."

They both know what he's not saying. If Aziraphale is truly honest with himself, he doesn't think any of them stand a chance. Not himself, a terrible angel without even a weapon to defend himself in the coming war; not Crowley, the best of demons, who can never defend himself against a strange angel; not their child, who knows nothing of them, whom they will never know.

"...Maybe they've had training," Crowley continues, trying to fill the silence left by that horrible awareness. "Heaven's been preparing for war for half an eternity by now. Michael or someone, they'll have taught the rest to fight. They won't be completely unprepared."

Aziraphale hopes that's the case; Heaven has been teaching some angels about Earth, so surely they must be training them all for the war, too. That _must_ be Heaven's priority. "Maybe so."

"Probably kick my arse - kick both of our arses if they wanted to." Their child is likely to do far worse than kick Crowley's arse, if they meet on the battlefield, and the tremble in the demon's voice shows that he knows it. He will let it happen, Aziraphale knows; he will let any angel he doesn't recognise cut him down if he can't escape without harming them.

"I'm sure they're formidable," he mumbles, "nothing to worry about."

"No. And Warlock's… he's a good kid."

"Exactly. It might not happen at all."

They lie in silence, for a while, after that. Aziraphale wonders if he should be unnerved by the way Crowley's serpentine eyes are so utterly focused on his face, gazing at him as if he's the most beautiful and precious thing in Crowley's world. _Well, one of them. We made the other together._

"At least I know," Crowley tells him, and Aziraphale frowns.

"You know…?"

"I know. What you can't tell me. You don't have to, I know anyway."

"What I-?" _I love you,_ he thinks, but cannot say. "Oh."

"I was- I was angry at first. I thought you were shutting me out. I was scared. And then I realised you _couldn't_ tell me. Ducks have ears. It wasn't safe, still isn't. To say it out loud. But I _know_."

"Oh, Crowley." His poor, sweet demon, always so understanding, so patient. He has read Aziraphale like a book, except that Crowley doesn't read books. "How long have you known?"

"About a century and a half," the demon admits, and Aziraphale does some quick mental arithmetic. _The 1860s. Holy Water._ Had it really frightened Crowley that badly? "How about you?"

"Much longer than that, I'm afraid. I just couldn't-"

"I know. I understand, it wasn't safe."

"And you-?"

It's almost a relief to be cut off as Crowley surges forward, pressing their lips together in a kiss that might have bruised a human. Aziraphale doesn't need to ask if Crowley loves him too; he knows he does. He's known it, on some level, for even longer than he's known his own feelings on the subject. Even when they were both hurting so very much, blaming one another for their loss and terrified of hurting each other again, he has always known Crowley will be there when he needs him.

"Angel," Crowley whispers, "I have to go."

"But it's barely dark-"

"People will talk, and I don't want to risk being a scandalous influence on Warlock at the last minute."

"I leave tomorrow afternoon," Aziraphale reminds him softly, and Crowley returns the softness in the form of a brief, chaste kiss that draws a moan from him anyway.

"I'll be there to say goodbye. After that… I'm only here for another six weeks. I'll see you before his birthday party."

Then he ripples into Nanny Ashtoreth, and walks out. Aziraphale almost thinks he hears a sniff just before his front door opens and closes, but he must be imagining things. Demons don't get ill, after all.

He lies in bed and thinks about what Crowley said.

_At least I know._ Crowley is preparing to face an army he can't fight, and the knowledge of Aziraphale's love brings him comfort. Perhaps he should have told him, years ago, but it doesn't matter now, because Crowley _knows_ and he's _glad_ of it.

Aziraphale finds himself more determined than ever that the world mustn't end.


	22. Tadfield, 2019 AD

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, Nah-mageddon is going to go by pretty fast. If I don't cover part of it, please assume it goes as in the show.
> 
> Anyway, naturally you can expect angst in the next few chapters. Enjoy!

**Tadfield, 2019 AD**

After they drop off the young woman Crowley had hit with his car - despite Crowley's insistence that it had been the other way around - they drive in silence for a long while. Aziraphale can't quite keep up with everything that's happened over the course of the day. Yesterday's revelation - that they've lost the Antichrist, wasted six years of work, and quite possibly doomed the Earth in the process - pales in comparison to the emotional rollercoaster he's been on in the last few hours.

Crowley was _shot_ , right in front of him. Yes, Aziraphale was shot too, and yes, it was a paintball gun, but with all his anxieties about the upcoming war swirling so close to the surface, the stain on Crowley's chest had pierced his heart as no bullet ever could.

_If we don't find the Antichrist, if we don't stop this, Crowley will die._

He was, perhaps, more disorientated by that thought than he realised, because he made the mistake of calling Crowley _nice_. Being slammed up against a wall for his trouble was neither a surprise nor a hardship, and he'd just been wondering whether to push his luck and kiss the demon when they were interrupted. His mind hasn't really stopped racing since then. Neither has his heart.

"Crowley, pull over."

To his surprise, Crowley does so without a moment's hesitation. He turns to Aziraphale expectantly, perhaps hoping for some dazzling insight or divine inspiration that will save them. Aziraphale has no such insight to offer; instead, he simply leans across the gap between them and kisses Crowley as if it's his last chance. It _might_ be his last chance. Crowley kisses back, gets his hands on Aziraphale's bow tie and tugs it loose; Aziraphale's seat reclines abruptly, a function he doesn't think the Bentley actually has, and he can't be sure whose miracle is responsible as Crowley climbs on top of him and keeps kissing.

"Never get shot in front of me again," Crowley gasps as they break apart, "it's rude."

"I want you to survive," Aziraphale tells him, tugging at Crowley's hips until their bodies are pressed together. "Please, Crowley-"

"If I could, angel, I'd do it for you. But it doesn't look good for me. We've lost the Antichrist. I'm a dead demon walking."

" _Don't._ Don't say that-"

"Can I have a last request?" He looks so earnest that Aziraphale can't even bring himself to protest.

"Anything, my dear."

"I want you to remember me. Just… remember me, not the Serpent of Eden or the architect of the M25 but _me_. Crowley."

"Oh, Crowley. How could I ever forget?"

"And maybe," Crowley struggles on, "one day you can tell our child about me. Not that I was their parent, perhaps. Maybe not even that I was a demon. But that I was your friend."

"I will. I _will_."

The mood has shifted; their kisses are no longer urgent, and though Crowley undoes Aziraphale's top two buttons, he leaves it at that, taking advantage of having access to Aziraphale's bare neck to leave dark, hungry marks blooming on his skin. Aziraphale is glad he keeps them below the line of his shirt collar, below the point where Heaven's battle dress will cover. He wants to wear Crowley's marks all the way to the end of the world, if it comes. 

_If the world ends, if the war starts, Crowley will die._ He shudders, even as the demon in question nuzzles into his neck. _Remember you? I can't go on without you._

He guides Crowley up to press their lips together once more, memorising the taste of him, his scent, the warmth of his mouth and the points of his teeth. Then he sits up slowly, the back of the seat rising with him.

"Drive, Crowley. We have a world to save."

With fresh determination, they agree to use their human agents to track the Antichrist down, and it's not until they pull up outside the bookshop that Aziraphale looks around for his bowtie and finds it tossed carelessly on the back seat. Beside it is a book, a book Aziraphale had long believed he would never see.

_The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter._ Perhaps there is a chance for them, after all.


	23. London, 2019 AD

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're not here for angst, I don't know what to tell you. Enjoy!

**London, 2019 AD**

Crowley pulls up outside the bookshop and it's a relief, such a blessed relief to realise he's still on Earth. He hasn't abandoned Aziraphale after the terrible things he said at the bandstand - perhaps he's realised that although Aziraphale had meant to push him away, he'd actually ended up quoting his own words back at him.

_ Crowley,  _ he'd asked in Ray, when everything had seemed hopeless,  _ are we still friends? _

_ We are an angel and a demon,  _ Crowley had pointed out, and smiled.  _ Of course we are. _

Subconsciously, perhaps, Aziraphale had meant to reassure him. Now Crowley is here, and everything is going to work out, just as soon as Aziraphale can get through to Heaven.

"I'm sorry," Crowley is saying. "Apologise. Whatever I said, I didn't mean it. Work with me, I'm apologising here. Yes. Good. Get in the car."

"What? No!" He can't believe Crowley is still talking about just abandoning the world; for a brief, shining moment, he'd thought he'd decided to stay with him.

"Forces of Hell. They've figured out that it was my fault. We can go away, together. Alpha Centauri. Spare planets up there. Nobody will notice us."  _ With the forces of Hell on your tail? _

"Crowley, you're being ridiculous. I'm quite sure that if I can just reach the right people, I can get this all sorted out."

"There aren't any right people. There's just God. Moving in mysterious ways and  _ not talking to any of us."  _ Crowley's doing his usual snarling-at-God act, the one he knows Aziraphale can't stand, and it only makes Aziraphale retreat further into the prim persona he presents to the rest of the world.

"Well, yes. That's why I'm going to have a word with the Almighty, and then the Almighty will fix it."

"That won't happen." Crowley stares at him as if  _ he's  _ the one being unreasonable. "You're so clever. How can somebody as clever as you be so stupid?" He can't mean it; he's just frightened and lashing out. Aziraphale makes a conscious decision not to be offended.

"I forgive you."

"I'm going home, angel. I'm getting my stuff. And I'm leaving." 

He's storming back to the Bentley's driver-side door as he speaks; if Aziraphale can't change his mind, Crowley's really going to go. It hardly seems safe to talk about their child in the street, any more than it did at the bandstand, but needs must.

"And what about  _ them _ ? Are you going to leave them behind too?" 

Crowley doesn't miss a beat. "We'll pick them up on the way, just come with me."

"How? Heaven's on a war footing, and we don't even know who they are-"

"Oh,  _ right.  _ Of  _ course  _ we don't." That stings; he knows it's his fault they don't know more about their child, but he never meant to ruin things for them. He'd thought Crowley understood that.

"Don't blame  _ me _ for-"

"You know what, they never liked me anyway. They're better off with you. You protect them. I'll leave you to it."

"I'll-"

"I've got to protect myself, now. And when I'm off in the stars, I, I won't even think about you!"

Crowley slams the car door and screeches off down the street; Aziraphale watches him go with a distinct sinking sensation. He's really leaving. Crowley is really leaving London, leaving Earth… leaving Aziraphale. He will never see him again.

"I've been there," a passerby tells him sympathetically. "You're better off without him."

Aziraphale can only stare blankly at him, a tiny frown furrowing his brow, until the man realises that he's severely breached London etiquette by approaching a stranger and scuttles away. Then Aziraphale fixes his eyes on the corner of the road around which the Bentley has so recently disappeared. Crowley can turn that car on a sixpence. Surely,  _ surely  _ he'll be back any moment now.

He stands there for five minutes he can't afford to waste before he has to accept that Crowley is gone.


	24. London, 2019 AD

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another little jump. Another tiny bit of angst. Enjoy!

**London, 2019 AD**

On the way home from Tadfield, on a bus that has no business going to London, Aziraphale grips Crowley's hand firmly and Crowley slumps onto his shoulder. He's not asleep - not _quite_ , Aziraphale thinks, though he can't be far from it - but he's finally let go of the tension he's been carrying constantly for the past week or so. Stopping the world from ending has been exhausting, but against all odds they - or rather Adam and his friends - seem to have done just that.

They can't save everything, though. The bookshop has burned. The Bentley has burned. Aziraphale touches the scrap of singed paper in his jacket pocket and sighs, knowing what it means. Heaven and Hell are coming for them, there's no doubt about that.

 _This is the end, for me and him._ The thought breaks his heart.

He only hopes their child doesn't get dragged into this. That Heaven won't punish them to get at him. If - _when,_ it seems - he and Crowley are destroyed, at least some evidence will remain that they crossed the lines, that they loved each other.

_It's not enough. We were supposed to have eternity. I always hoped we would._

They've wasted so much time, over the years, avoiding one another and falling out and hiding. Now, when they've saved the world, they don't get to enjoy it. Now, when their friendship is finally out in the open, they have to die.

_No. I won't stand for it. This prophecy found me for a reason, I have to believe that._

Crowley is slow to rise from his seat, when the bus finally rolls to a stop outside his flat, and he makes the short journey from his seat to the door as if he's wading through tar. Aziraphale gets an arm around him to make sure he stays upright, and between them they manage to get up to Crowley's door without incident.

"You'll want to sleep, of course," Aziraphale murmurs as they enter the flat, "I'll just-"

He doesn't get any further, as Crowley sweeps his sunglasses from his face, throws them aside, and kisses him.

"Mmh!" It's all the protest he can muster, and it's hardly a protest at all; he's surprised, not displeased. Crowley's hands slip up under his waistcoat, and Aziraphale shivers despite the layer of fabric still between them. But then Crowley makes a soft, frustrated noise directly into Aziraphale's mouth and draws back a fraction, burying his face in the crook of Aziraphale's neck. Aziraphale already knows why he's stopped, but he waits patiently for Crowley to say it.

"Angel." The word is barely recognisable. "Want you… so tired."

"You've done a lot today, my dear. I'd be worried if you _weren't_ tired."

"Sleeping's a waste of time," Crowley protests, and Aziraphale chuckles.

"Can I have that in writing?"

"Time we don't _have,_ angel."

"Well, the sooner you sleep, the more time we might have when you wake up." Aziraphale is already moving carefully towards where he assumes the bedroom is, all but carrying his demon as he stumbles along behind him.

He helps Crowley undress, doing his best not to get distracted as that beloved torso emerges into view. Sexual frustration soon gives way to _actual_ frustration, however, as he gets Crowley's shoes off and turns his attention to his jeans.

"How do you get these _off?_ How do you even get _into_ these, Crowley? Are they painted on?"

"Easier from the inside, angel. Besides, 'm a snake." _Oh, I see. You're constricting me,_ Aziraphale remembers saying, long ago. "If you were me, you could do it, easy." He wriggles out of his jeans as he speaks, as if to prove he can, and then he promptly falls asleep.

Aziraphale doesn't spare a thought for fond annoyance; his mind is racing off in quite another direction, the outline of a plan sparking into life like a constellation of thoughts.

_If the prophecy means what I think it means…_

Crowley is unconscious; Aziraphale doubts he could wake him if he tried, and there's no sense in getting his hopes up anyway, if what he's planning can't be done. He's under no illusions about the weak link in his plan; Crowley is an accomplished shapeshifter, after all. It's Aziraphale who struggles with assuming new forms.

_If you were me, you could do it, easy._

The demon looks cold, sprawled on his bed in nothing but his underwear. Aziraphale drags the sheets up over him, and then he picks up one of Crowley's hands, kisses it gently, and places it on top of the covers. He rests his own hand next to it, compares the length and girth of the fingers, studies the marks on the back of that infernal hand… and focuses. 

By the time he wakes Crowley, several hours later, he's got the hang of it.

"Crowley, look." The demon blinks a few times, then watches intently as Aziraphale's hand slowly morphs to match his own.

"...Well done?"

"Oh, right, sorry, I should explain."

He shows Crowley the prophecy and explains his theory that it means he'll be facing Hellfire when their sides catch up with them.

"What does my hand have to do with that?"

"Agnes said _choose your faces wisely._ A hand was more convenient to practice on while you were sleeping, but… we're opposing entities. What harms a demon rolls right off an angel, and vice versa. So-"

"So we might just survive this, if we take each other's places." Crowley throws the sheet aside and spreads his arms wide, offering himself up. "Study away, angel. My body is yours."

"Keep talking like that, and I'll forget about our imminent deaths altogether."

Crowley laughs, delighted, and although Aziraphale doubts he'll have any cause to mimic the sound in Hell, he commits it to memory.

A few hours later, a being of original angelic stock returns to the bookshop and is surprised to find it unburnt; several hours after _that_ , two beings of original angelic stock meet in a park and are ambushed.

Aziraphale keeps his eyes fixed on Crowley until he can't any more.


	25. Hell, 2019 AD

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is short, sorry. BUT it's also your last real chance to float theories in the comments as the next chapter will bring some answers...
> 
> Also, I'm considering writing some Crowley POVs to go with some of these chapters (just not right away). Would anyone be interested in those?
> 
> Anyway. Enjoy!

**Hell, 2019 AD**

The trial is long and tedious, and Aziraphale wishes he had a chair. Somehow he doubts he can just ask Beelzebub to make room for him on their throne. Perhaps he should have slept for a little bit the previous night, but he'd had a lot to do.

He stands and listens to the litany of Crowley's alleged crimes - they seem to be listing all the fraternisation-related charges they can think of for each individual meeting they've uncovered. Amusingly, they only seem to have caught four instances of the Arrangement bringing them into each other's orbits, and two more social meetings. They don't mention anything at all before 500 AD, which is a great relief, and at long last the trial reaches its natural - obvious - conclusion. The demons chant "Guilty! Guilty!" as if their opinions actually matter, given that Beelzebub and their colleagues clearly want Crowley gone, and then Michael herself turns up with Holy Water. _That's_ a surprise; actually, it shakes him a little. He comforts himself by doing one of the things he likes best; he takes Crowley's clothes off. Well, most of them. Then he gets into the bath, relieved beyond belief when nothing unexpected happens. 

Nothing unexpected for _him_ , that is; the demons looking on are shocked and horrified as he lazily trails his fingers through the water. Flicking it idly in the direction of the window, he wonders if his own trial is as well-attended; he wonders if their child is there to watch their parent executed as a traitor. He wonders if Crowley will be able to sense them, in Heaven, as Aziraphale could not.

When Michael returns, he demands a towel and she's so shocked by his continued existence that she actually miracles him one up. He's had a lot of fun in Hell, but he's quite keen to see his demon again; it's time to get back to Earth.

"I think it would be best for everyone if I were left alone in future. Don't you?"

But he has no intention of being alone. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, a reminder that this is your last chance for any theories you may have... and also please let me know if you want to see some Crowley POVs for this fic.


	26. London, 2019 AD

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Could this be my last opportunity to make you all hate me? Enjoy!

**London, 2019**

"To the world."

"To the _world_."

They stay at the Ritz for a long time, basking in the luxury of their newfound freedom. A couple of drinks over a late lunch quickly become several more drinks, and other patrons are beginning to drift in for dinner by the time Crowley admits to breathing Hellfire at the archangels.

"I wanted to make sure they were too scared to bother you. But I don't think you're going to be able to go up there any more."

"I hardly ever did anyway," Aziraphale reassures him, but Crowley shakes his head.

"I mean… you can't go up there looking for our child any more."

The realisation hits him like a freight train, knocking all the air out of his lungs.

"That's it, then. It's over. We've lost them." He reaches across the table to pat Crowley's hand before he can start blaming himself; Aziraphale has spent miserable centuries doing that, and it's never done him any good. It can't be helped; Crowley was protecting him. He'd never have been able to return, anyway. Still, he can't help asking for one last shred of hope. "No sign of them at all?"

"Nothing. And I couldn't exactly ask the archangels. I didn't want to remind them that they could use your child to get at you."

"No. No, I only hope they don't think of it themselves."

"I'll drink to that." Crowley raises his glass, and Aziraphale follows suit.

"To our child, then."

"To Jorael."

Aziraphale's glass slips between his fingers and shatters on the floor at his feet.

For several seconds, he can't hear anything over the ringing in his ears and the pounding of his heart. As if in slow motion, he sees Crowley lurch forward and snap his fingers, fixing the glass and waving away the concerned waiter who appears at their table. Apparently the waiter doesn't leave fast enough; Crowley makes an impatient gesture and time stops altogether. The demon himself still seems to be moving in slow motion as he reaches Aziraphale's side and drops to his knees, peering anxiously into his eyes.

Aziraphale has to make a concerted effort to process the vague noises Crowley is making into actual words; it's as if the sound is travelling to him underwater.

"Sorry, I thought it might be safe now, just once-"

"Jorael," he blurts out, and then, "our child." It's impossible; Crowley can't know that. He _can't know that,_ because Aziraphale doesn't know that, and if Crowley knew something about their child that Aziraphale didn't, he would have told him. Surely he _would have told him._

"Sorry," Crowley mutters again, "didn't mean to scare you. I'm sure no-one heard-"

"You knew." It comes out icily quiet, restrained. Aziraphale is proud of himself for a moment, and then he realises that he doesn't have to be calm right now. He doesn't have to be quiet. " _You knew?!_ You knew our child's name and you didn't tell me?"

"I- I did tell you, before you left the Dowlings', I said- I knew you couldn't tell me, I've known for 150 years-"

"I didn't know you meant _our child's name!"_

"What else-"

"I thought you meant you knew I loved you! I didn't think you meant you knew something _I didn't!"_

"You loved me?" And then it hits; Aziraphale watches Crowley's face crumple under the impact of the realisation. "You didn't know."

"How _could_ I-? How did _you-?"_ He can't do this, he can't cope with this. Not here, not now. "I'm going home. I need- I just- give me an hour. Give me an hour, and come to the shop. I need-" He needs space, he needs to catch his breath, he needs to gather his thoughts… he still needs _Crowley._

"Angel, I'm sorry-"

"Just- one hour." And he walks out, barely aware of the world beginning to move again around him as he reaches the street.

He lets himself into the bookshop and realises at once that he's made a mistake. Falling to his knees on the rug that covers his communication circle, he cries like he's never cried before. 

_Our child is Jorael. Crowley kept that from me. Jorael is our child._ He feels as though he's lost them all over again, now that he can put a face to the concept. He has resigned himself to the idea of losing the baby he held in Anathoth, but now that he knows they're a fully-grown angel, he has to say goodbye to _them,_ too. It's harder, somehow. It _hurts._ And Crowley - Crowley knew, and he didn't tell him. Did he just like knowing something Aziraphale didn't? Was it some sort of revenge for Aziraphale having given the child to Heaven in the first place? It feels like he's lost Crowley, too.

Crowley has known for a century and a half that Jorael is their child. He has known since the 1860s, and Jorael… Jorael has _stood in this bookshop._ They stood in this bookshop, in 1904, while Crowley was sleeping off their fight, and if Crowley had only _told_ him… He could have known. Could have drunk in the details, committed their image to memory. He could have watched them as Gabriel talked, sought out any tiny mark of himself in them. Any tiny mark of Crowley.

Crowley should have _told_ him. As it is, he can barely remember what Jorael looks like; the harder he tries to picture them, the more the image slips away. He does remember, though, that Gabriel had sent them away, that last time he'd seen them. They had wandered off between the shelves, and they had been running their fingers along the spines - no. No, they hadn't touched his books; they'd run their fingers along the shelves, instead.

When Crowley arrives, exactly an hour after Aziraphale left the Ritz, the angel is standing among his books, running his fingers over the smooth, dark wood of the shelves.

"Angel." His voice sounds wrecked, as if he's been crying just as hard as Aziraphale has. "Angel, I'm sorry. I swear, I thought you-"

"What does the J stand for, Crowley?" Aziraphale can't look at him yet, can't trust his own face not to betray him, but he's all too aware of Crowley's approach. The demon stops a few feet behind him.

"You know what it stands for." It's soft, and sorrowful, and Aziraphale can hear the regret in it, but something tight and cold has closed around his heart, crushing it slowly in an iron grip.

"They were here, you know." He drops his hand from the bookshelf with difficulty. "With Gabriel. 1904. They stood here, and I didn't know them, and if-" He chokes on the accusation, but it seems Crowley hears it anyway.

"If I'd told you."

"How did you find out, anyway?" He's run out of tears; his voice is cold and measured and admits no weakness. Crowley's voice doesn't sound like that; Crowley's voice has an audible tremor to it.

"Hastur. He heard from Ligur that there was an angel younger than the others. I suppose that came from your side, making sure it wasn't my side's doing."

"He told them it wasn't?"

"He told them Hell knew nothing about it, because they didn't. It… I never told them anything. I never even said the name, once I'd heard it, in case they- I thought that was what you were doing too."

"Why?" There's no response, so Aziraphale presses. "What made you so sure I knew?"

"I recognised the name." Crowley sighed. "I was _sure_ I'd heard you say it, long ago. Thought you'd tried to tell me without telling me, and I'd missed it. But… you were telling me something else, weren't you." It's not a question; Aziraphale can hear the defeated slump of his shoulders in his voice.

"I think the only time we ever spoke about Jorael was when they chased you from Paris. If you hadn't come to me- if you'd been running from any other angel-" _I would never have said our child's name in your presence, and you would have told me. Wouldn't you?_

"I should have told you," Crowley mumbles, "I'm sorry. I know… I know this is the end for us. This - _I_ \- can't be forgiven."

Aziraphale stiffens, his whole body freezing as he realises Crowley is about to leave. He thinks Aziraphale wants him to. And Aziraphale… for all the pain and regret and, yes, anger flooding through him right now, he finds that he _doesn't_ want Crowley to go. It's not Crowley he's angry with, not really. 

"Stop," he calls, and the floorboard that was creaking falls silent. "Come here."

Crowley comes to stand beside him, head bowed, looking for all the world like a dog that expects to be kicked. Aziraphale takes his hand, and the demon's fingers tense until Aziraphale brings them to his lips. Then those golden eyes grow wide.

"I forgive you. Can you forgive me? For being tricked? For letting them go in the first place?"

"Ages ago," Crowley croaks, "I forgave you so long ago."

"Then we're all right. We're tickety-boo," he teases weakly, and Crowley pulls a face. "Here." He places Crowley's hand gently on a shelf he's sure Jorael touched, presses in close and sets his own hand beside it. "Our child touched this shelf, here."

They stand there for a long time, fingers following the grain of the wood, arms wrapped firmly around each other's waists, as close to their lost child as they are ever likely to be. And when they walk away, it is to go to bed.

"There's something _I_ should have told _you,_ " Aziraphale tells him softly. "I love you."

"And you know- you _must_ know- I love you too, angel."

When they go to bed, it is together.


	27. London, 2020 AD

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hate to see you guys sad for too long. Now I've got to go and do some actual work, so. Enjoy!

**London, 2020 AD**

Six months after the thwarted Apocalypse, Aziraphale and Crowley have settled into something of a routine. The bookshop's opening hours are less predictable than ever, as Aziraphale divides his time between his own home and Crowley's. Crowley does much the same thing, and even when they're both in the bookshop, it's not unusual for it to remain closed. They are free to be together, now, and Aziraphale doesn't want to waste a moment of that freedom dealing with customers instead.

Sometimes, he stands among the bookcases and tries to conjure up the image of their child standing there. Sometimes, he finds Crowley running reverent fingers over the edges of the shelves. Sometimes, they sit together and talk of what might have been, if only they had had another choice.

"There _was_ no other choice," Crowley always reminds him, before they can get too maudlin, "we did the right thing."

"Yes. Of course we did," Aziraphale always concedes, but it doesn't take away the awful feeling of having been cheated of something.

In the mornings, they wake entwined in each other's arms, and Crowley can prove surprisingly difficult to disentangle. Aziraphale's preferred method is to ply him with kisses, but sometimes they stay in bed all morning nonetheless. In six thousand years, they both agree, they haven't made love nearly enough, and they're making up for lost time now.

One Tuesday morning in March, the sun rises in the east, as usual, and Aziraphale wakes in Crowley's arms, as usual, and they spend a few minutes kissing each other awake before getting up to make breakfast, as usual.

What's unusual about this particular Tuesday morning is that just as the toaster pops, a celestial presence becomes apparent in the area. Aziraphale looks to Crowley in alarm; they've been left alone so far, so why would Heaven come after them now?

"Stand by," Crowley mutters under his breath, and lights a ring on the gas hob. Crowley can make Hellfire - not as strong as the sort Hell sent up for Aziraphale's trial, but enough to give an angel pause, at the very least - out of any fire that isn't holy, and though both he and Aziraphale are wary of throwing the stuff around in the bookshop without severe provocation, they agreed months ago that if it came to it, they would defend their side against any threat that presented itself. They haven't been tested, until now.

The presence draws closer, and then there's a knock on the door. It goes unanswered, as does the second, and Aziraphale takes a step backwards, towards Crowley, as they hear the door unlock. It swings open, then closed, and a voice calls something indistinct, muffled by the floor between them and the visitor.

"Not Gabriel, at least," Aziraphale whispers, "his voice carries. I think Uriel's the only quiet archangel."

"Still dangerous," Crowley cautions softly, snapping his fingers for his sunglasses and settling them on his face, "even if they're alone."

They listen anxiously to the creak of floorboards as maybe-Uriel moves across the shop until they find the stairs. A soft tread makes its way up, step by cautious step, as if expecting to be ambushed.

"Principality Aziraphale?"

"Not Uriel," Aziraphale confirms in a whisper, trying to place the voice. He's heard it before, he's certain of it.

"I come in peace," calls the voice, and Crowley frowns too, as if in recognition.

"Jorael," Aziraphale realises all at once - and Crowley brings time to a screeching halt.

"What do we do?" He's already turning the hob off as he speaks; Crowley will not harm their child, any more than Aziraphale would. There's no easy answer to his question, though; as much as Aziraphale would like to welcome Jorael as family, there's no telling what their purpose here might be. Besides, they've never given any sign of knowing - or caring - that Aziraphale is their parent, and overfamiliarity might drive them away or scare them into smiting. Even if Aziraphale _could_ be sure they'd accept him as a parent, though, he couldn't act on that familial connection without knowing if Crowley would be accepted too. And what if Jorael is here to threaten them, or for some other reason completely unrelated to being their child? Oh, Her, _their_ _child is in the bookshop…_

"Act neutral. Like they're just another angel, we don't know if they know- just. We don't want to scare them. Just find out what they want, and stay calm," Aziraphale whispers, with a confidence he doesn't feel.

"Any other angel. Got it," Crowley whispers back, and then, "why are we whispering? Time's stopped."

"Start it back up, please. The suspense is killing me." Crowley takes a deep breath and obeys.

A moment later, Jorael nudges the door open just enough to hold out what looks like a very large black handkerchief through the gap.

"Er… flag of truce?"

"Accepted," Aziraphale replies formally, "you may enter as long as you attempt no harm. Although it's usually a _white_ flag-"

"That one's fine," Crowley blurts out, and the door swings open fully to admit their child.

They aren't a child, any more, of course; Jorael is a fully-grown angel, dressed in the sort of pastel suit Heaven seems to favour. They are radiant, their hair like spun bronze brushing their collar, their eyes the colour of honey. Aziraphale looks at them, knowing that they are Crowley's child, and wonders how he could possibly have missed it before; Crowley's eyes dart between his angel and Jorael and it seems he might be wondering the same thing.

"Be not afraid," Jorael tries, tentatively, and Crowley makes a choked sound that may well indicate the suppression of a hysterical giggle. "I, er. I hope I'm not intruding."

"Not at all," Aziraphale assures them, trying to keep his voice light and casual and as far from tears as possible. "Can we help you?"

"I, er, well. I hope so. I know you want nothing to do with angels, but… you were kind to me once, Principality Aziraphale." They turn to Crowley. "And I was unkind to you."

"Were you?" Crowley looks genuinely perplexed for a moment. "Oh, d'you mean Paris? Not unkind. Just doing your job. Aziraphale used to chase me out of places all the time."

"You forgave me," Aziraphale confirms softly.

Jorael looks between them as if they don't quite know what to think.

"I. Well. I'm sorry, anyway. I had no right. I was very young." They narrow their eyes, as if looking for some kind of reaction, and Aziraphale can only hope his expression is as stoic as Crowley's. "And I'm sorry, Principality Aziraphale, for listening when I shouldn't have, all those years ago. But you- you- I don't know how to say this." They take a deep breath, turning all their attention towards Aziraphale. "I'm the child you were asking about. The one born one thousand, nine hundred and eighty-six years ago. And nobody else seems to know anything about it."

"Well. Er, please, just Aziraphale is fine. And this is Crowley. Perhaps we should all sit down?"

They sit around the table and Crowley settles, as he often does, with his chin propped up on one hand - but this time, he's not looking at Aziraphale. He is, Aziraphale knows, trying to commit every detail of their child to memory. He nudges the demon with his foot, under the table, and clears his throat to draw Jorael's attention.

"I take it you have questions about your birth."

"I've spent a century investigating. Ever since you asked Gabriel about me." Aziraphale remembers, all of a sudden, Jorael's wide-eyed panic as they'd emerged from among the shelves that day. He'd assumed they were worried about keeping Gabriel waiting. "I confessed to having overheard - it's hard, stopping my corporation from hearing things - and asked why you wanted to know about me."

"And he told you…?"

"That I was given to you to pass on to Heaven." Jorael frowns. "But then he said that was only because Earth is where things are born, so- I thought- I wondered- Was I born?" They take a deep breath. "Are you my parent?"

Aziraphale feels as though his heart is stuttering in his chest as he glances at Crowley before answering. 

"I… I am." He stands up, restless energy urging him out of his seat, and Jorael - his _child_ \- leaps up, too. "Though I'm afraid I haven't done much parenting." Jorael holds out their arms, looking hopeful, and he can't reject them. The hug they share is clumsy, but no less perfect for it. This is Aziraphale's _child,_ and here they are, awkwardly embracing the parent who betrayed the place that raised them. "But, ah… you really were _given_ to me. I didn't give birth to you."

"Given to you?" Jorael takes a step back, searching his face for answers. "By the Almighty?"

Aziraphale turns to Crowley, suddenly unsure of what to say; the demon barely dares a glance up before fixing his eyes on the 'flag of truce' Jorael has left on their table.

"By the person who did give birth to you." Crowley brushes a finger over the edge of the folded fabric in front of him, and suddenly Aziraphale recognises it. "The owner of this veil."

Jorael looks as if they're a fraction of a second away from snatching the veil back. Aziraphale understands; if they've held onto it for nearly two millennia, they're probably as protective of it as he is of his rarest books.

"What do you know about it?"

"I know it was your first clothing, your first protection against the draughts of a run-down stable and the scratch of the hay in the manger." Crowley still won't look at either angel, and Aziraphale knows him well enough to see that he's losing his nerve. "I'm surprised Heaven let you keep it."

"They're not monsters, you know."

Aziraphale looks at Jorael's indignation and sees an echo of his own desperation, over the years, to pretend that Heaven is as perfect as it claims to be. Crowley, as he finally looks up at his child, sees only rejection.

"Mm. No. But demons are, right? That's why you chased me off that time." He turns to Aziraphale, pain etched into every line of his face. "Angel, I should go-"

"He never fought you, did he?" Aziraphale will not let Crowley walk away without putting up a fight for the child he gave away. The child he entrusted to Aziraphale, and then to his _enemies_ , in the hope of giving them a better life. "Never even tried."

Maybe it's the significant tone Aziraphale is using, or maybe it's the way Crowley freezes, half out of his seat, paralyzed by a potent cocktail of hope and fear, but something sets their child to thinking. Aziraphale can practically see the cogs turning in their head as they step back towards their empty seat.

"He… didn't. And… you two…" They sit down heavily, as if their legs aren't quite up to supporting them any more. "You saved the world together." 

Jorael reaches out, touches the fabric folded on the table… and turns to Crowley.

"This is _your_ veil," they breathe, and it's not a question. Crowley is still frozen, radiating pure terror, and even his sunglasses can't hide his panic from Aziraphale. Crowley has been rejected so many times over the years - by Aziraphale, on far too many occasions - that now he doesn't even dare to confirm the truth for fear of his worst nightmare being realised.

"Yes," Aziraphale answers for him. "We're your parents, Jorael. At least by birth."

Jorael takes this in for a few moments. They regard Crowley warily before reaching out and, very slowly, removing his glasses. Crowley stays very still, letting them do it, and Aziraphale's breath catches in his throat as he sees how snakelike his eyes are, yellow right to the edges as they only are in times of great emotion.

"I'm your child?" Jorael asks, and when Crowley nods they carefully wrap their arms around him. 

Crowley manages to hold it together for exactly as long as it takes to bring his own arms up to return the hug, and then he bursts into tears.

"I'm sorry- I thought- my Earth studies suggested families did this-" Jorael's not pulling back - couldn't, anyway, because Crowley has them in a desperately tight grip - but they look absolutely horrified to have caused any distress. Crowley opens his mouth to speak and it comes out as a wail.

"You- you _screamed_ when I tried to hold you-"

"They're not the one crying now," Aziraphale reminds him gently, and Crowley can't even shoot him a withering look because he's too busy sobbing onto Jorael's shoulder.

"I'm sorry-"

"No, it's not- I don't- you were a _baby_." But he can't seem to pull himself together. Aziraphale intervenes, resting a hand on his demon's shoulder and, after a moment's hesitation, laying the other on their child's head.

"Do you think you could ease up a bit, my dear? I'm sure Jorael has questions."

Crowley flinches, tries to throw himself backwards - but Jorael catches his hand before he can move too far away.

"I'm not going to scream," they tell him firmly. "But I do have questions. For both of you."

They settle around the table again, and Jorael squeezes both of their hands before letting go. Crowley whimpers at the loss of contact, so Aziraphale reaches out for him instead. It seems he will have to do the talking for both of them, for the moment; Crowley is all raw nerves.

"What would you like to know-?" He cuts himself off before he can say _dear;_ he doesn't know if that would be appreciated.

"I screamed when you tried to hold me." Jorael is frowning, as if they're trying to process this new information. "W-"

"When _I_ held you," Crowley corrects softly, "not Aziraphale. When I went _near_ you, actually. You're an angel, I'm a demon-"

"Is that why you didn't want me?"

All the air seems to rush from the room as the question sinks in.

"Why I-?"

"It's just- on Earth, parents usually raise their children, we learned about it. Even if it's only one parent." Jorael makes a helpless gesture. "I know Archangel Gabriel was trying to protect me, not telling me you gave me up-"

"Didn't want you," Crowley repeats quietly, "didn't _want_ you, is that what you think?"

"Well, I… I suppose I can't blame you, if I cried a lot-"

"It nearly _destroyed_ us both to give you up," Crowley tells them, "but I couldn't keep you with me, not with Hell."

"I tried to keep you," Aziraphale adds, "but Gabriel insisted there was only one proper place for a new angel. I should have argued with him-"

"He's never stopped asking about you," Crowley interrupts, "we've never stopped missing you."

Jorael narrows their eyes, looking from one parent to the other as if trying to catch them in a lie. Then, all at once, they stand.

"They'll be expecting me back. I have to go." It feels like a punch in the heart, but neither Aziraphale nor Crowley move to stop their child from leaving. Holding people against their will has very rarely been a good strategy for winning them over, in Aziraphale's considerable experience, and he certainly doesn't mean to try it on their child. He's not surprised that Crowley agrees; Jorael, on the other hand, looks as though they were expecting to have to fight their way out.

"Will you be all right?" Aziraphale can't help but ask, and Jorael frowns. 

"I am an angel of the Lord," they remind him, "I have nothing to fear from Heaven."

"Of course." Is this how Crowley felt, for all those years, while Aziraphale clung to the party line? It's infuriating. "Still, best not mention that you saw us. No need to upset anyone Upstairs."

"You're not going to stop me?" They look from Aziraphale to Crowley; the demon isn't even blinking, now, body tensed like a coiled spring. After a few seconds, he seems to realise that he ought to respond, and shakes his head. Aziraphale can feel the demon shaking beside him as Jorael heads for the door.

At the last minute, they turn. 

"Can I visit again, soon?"

"Of course. You're always welcome." Again, he has to bite back a _dear_ , the sort of easy affection he wouldn't give a second thought if he was talking to a stranger. _This_ stranger is their child, and he doesn't want to scare them away with overfamiliarity. "Any time."

Jorael leaves, and for a moment there is only silence. When it's broken by sniffles, then sobs, Aziraphale assumes, in a distant sort of way, that Crowley has reached his limit of holding back emotions. It's not until the demon's fingers brush his cheeks that he realises he's the one crying.

"Oh, angel. Angel, it's OK. They're OK. They know where we are, now."

"They thought we didn't want them-"

"They'll learn. They'll come back, and we'll show them. They were always loved. And they're fine, they're all grown up, and they can look after themself…" Crowley sounds a little wobbly again, too; Aziraphale decides there and then that their plans for the day have changed.

"Come back to bed with me, Crowley." Aziraphale squeezes his demon's hand. "I think finally seeing our child again is as good an excuse to cuddle as any." Besides, a pillow seems the appropriate place for all the tears still spilling down his cheeks.

"They found us," Crowley whispers, awestruck, as they settle beneath the sheets together, and Aziraphale can only kiss him.


	28. London, 2021 AD

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll get round to responding to those last few comments in a bit, but for now, this is late. Sorry about that. Enjoy!

**London, 2021 AD**

It's been far too long since Jorael's visit to the bookshop. In Aziraphale's opinion, they can't possibly return soon enough. But to be perfectly honest, when Aziraphale finally feels that hint of a celestial presence nearby, he's just glad they didn't turn up ten minutes earlier.

"Crowley," he murmurs, and feels the demon's arms tighten around him. "Crowley, dear."

"You're insatiable," Crowley mumbles, and starts pressing sleepy kisses to his neck, which is- well, it's very nice, but not the point Aziraphale is trying to make.

"No- there's someone from Upstairs nearby. Could be Jorael. We should get dressed."

"Oh, right-" Crowley sits up and snaps his fingers, cleaning away all evidence of their long, leisurely morning of lovemaking and clothing himself in his usual black. Aziraphale miracles his own clothes back on and stands, ready to greet their visitor, just as the door buzzer sounds.

Crowley reaches it first - Aziraphale lets him, because he doesn't quite trust himself to operate the building's intercom system even though Crowley assures him there's literally nothing to it - and speaks into the little microphone.

"Hello?"

"Is that- is that, er, Crowley?"

"Jorael." Hopefully, the ragged awe in his voice will be lost in static before it can scare off their child. "Yeah, good, come up."

He opens the door to Jorael a minute later, and Aziraphale spares a moment to be glad that Crowley's flat actually has a proper sofa and an armchair in it these days. It means there's somewhere comfortable for the three of them to sit in uncomfortable silence.

"I'm glad it was you," Crowley blurts out, and then immediately looks as if he'd like to crawl back down into Hell and die. "Er, you know. Angel in the area. Definitely better than Gabriel. Or Michael, what a-"

"I understand Archangel Michael was involved in your failed execution," Jorael tells him stiffly, "and I realise there's no love lost there. But it might be best that we keep the discussion of my superiors' flaws to a minimum." 

Aziraphale watches Crowley deflate, horribly reminded of the way the little round demon had dissolved into nothing at the execution.

"Even if Michael _is_ a wanker," Jorael concludes under their breath, eyes fixed on Crowley's, and it's as if the demon's just been handed all his wildest dreams on a plate. Jorael looks _terrified,_ but they seem delighted by Crowley's smile. Aziraphale knows the feeling; this particular smile of Crowley's is a thing of beauty, rare and fragile and all the more breathtaking for it. He smiles, too, and their child smiles shyly back. 

"It's lovely to see you," Aziraphale offers, when no further conversation seems forthcoming, and Jorael blinks.

"Even though I left? Even though it's been so long?"

"It's not the longest we've been separated," Aziraphale points out. "I'm just glad you came back."

"Why _did_ you come back?" Crowley's watching their child through narrowed eyes, searching for the barb, the trap, the trick. Aziraphale feels a flicker of fear; Crowley has always had better instincts when it comes to protecting them.

"I want to know more," Jorael tells them, "and Heaven's story keeps changing."

"Yeah, it does that," Crowley grumbles, but he stops when Jorael purses their lips in a way even Aziraphale recognises. It's usually _him_ wearing that expression, when Crowley is at his most exasperating. It's unsettling to see it on someone else's face.

"What did Heaven tell you?" He asks, when what he really wants to know is how they could possibly have inherited his mannerisms without even knowing him.

"At first, just that I was the youngest. That I was new, that I shouldn't think I was special."

"You are ssspecial," Crowley hisses, and Aziraphale squeezes his hand to calm him. Jorael turns a little pink, but ploughs on as if they haven't heard.

"Then when I joined the Ninth Choir, some of the other angels wanted to know where I'd come from. If I was Nephilim - I had to look that up - or whose child I was. And I didn't know. I asked Archangel Gabriel if I was his - he was the one who'd arranged for me to be taught things like walking and talking and all the other things angels do - but he said no. That I was one of Her creations, and nobody else had anything to do with it. That I'd been born on Earth."

Crowley folds his arms around himself, clearly offended, and Aziraphale doesn't blame him.

"Crowley grew your corporation inside his own, he laboured like a human to give you life."

"Doesn't matter, angel." Crowley squeezes his hand in gratitude, though, so it doesn't feel as dismissive as it otherwise might. It matters to Aziraphale - Crowley deserves some credit for all he went through to bring Jorael into the world - but that's not Crowley's top priority. "You were happy, growing up? They treated you well?"

"They treated me like all the other angels," Jorael assures him. Crowley doesn't seem as reassured by this as he might be, somehow, but their child doesn't seem to have any complaints. "I was quite content. Until-"

"Until-?" Aziraphale can feel panic threatening to overtake him. "Until what-?"

"If they harmed you," Crowley snarls, but Jorael shrinks back. 

"No! No, nothing like- I just- I was happy, but then I came down to visit Earth and there was an angel asking about me... but not me. You didn't know who I was. And I thought- there was something to know, something about myself that they weren't telling me. And I wanted to know."

 _"Definitely_ your child," Crowley mutters, and Aziraphale raises an eyebrow at him.

"Yes, dear, because _you're_ known for your _lack_ of curiosity."

"I'm… like you?" Jorael's eyes are wide as they look between the older beings. "We're alike?"

"Quite," Aziraphale confirms, even as Crowley says,

"Like him. You're like him, you don't want to be like me."

Jorael regards them both impassively for a moment, then sighs.

"Why didn't you raise me?" It doesn't sound like a complaint. It sounds like a simple request for information, but Jorael already knows the answer to this question. Perhaps Crowley understands; he doesn't hesitate to answer.

"I couldn't. You were an angel, and I belonged to Hell. Aziraphale planned to raise you, with Heaven's knowledge, but-"

"Gabriel seemed very certain that Heaven was the right place for you. And that I was still needed here," Aziraphale concluded hastily. Crowley ranting about Gabriel wouldn't help any of them now.

"Did he know I was… that you were…" Jorael hesitates, as if they can't quite bring themselves to finish the sentence. "Did he know I was part-demon, all-?"

"You're not," Crowley interrupted, "the difference between an angel and a demon is Falling. That's all, no matter what else they'd all like you to believe. You haven't Fallen, so you're an angel."

"But- _you're_ a demon."

"I am. But my choices didn't get passed down to you, and neither did the consequences."

They sit for a moment, contemplating that, and Aziraphale feels a sudden surge of restless energy; he needs to be doing something, anything, or he'll start dwelling on the years they've lost and embarrass them all by bursting into tears.

"Shall I make us some tea? Oh- sorry, Jorael-" He manages to say the name around the sudden lump in his throat, at least. "Do you drink tea, or is that-?"

"I've never had the opportunity to try it," Jorael admits, "but I'd like to, if I may."

Aziraphale doesn't mean to leave Crowley to fend for himself in the face of their child's questions - though he's sure Crowley will do a much better job than he would - but he finds himself fretting over the tea, determined to get it just right. To boil the water the human way, to pick the right blend of leaves and brew it perfectly. Their child's first cup of tea, he realises, a first they haven't missed, and it has to be _right._ He feels a pang of guilt at stealing this first from Crowley, but it's too late to go back now.

"...and that's when Aziraphale arrived, I think I passed out after that," he hears Crowley say, and clears his throat loudly as he steps back into the room with a tray of tea things. Their child deserves a proper cup of tea, served properly from a teapot. He sets the tray down on the coffee table, and promptly freezes up out of anxiety. He can't serve tea to their _child;_ it's too surreal to think that they're right there in front of him.

"I- er-"

Crowley catches him, as he always does when Aziraphale stumbles. "Shall I be Mother?" He realises what he's said the moment he's said it, and Aziraphale rushes to return the favour.

"You pour, my dear, and I'll sort out the milk."

"Are- that is- should I call you…?" Jorael trails off, accepting the cup of tea and peering down at it to hide their nerves. Silence falls; neither Aziraphale nor Crowley know how to answer that question, it seems. 

Jorael speaks, at last.

"I didn't know what to think, before. All I've ever done is try to be a good angel, to serve Her, and then you told me I was the child of the angel who thwarted the Great Plan. That was a lot to deal with, and then- then a demon, too. I thought it had to be a trick."

"I'm sorry," Crowley sounds so terribly soft, the way he had when he read Warlock gruesome bedtime stories, but Jorael answers sharply. 

"No. I don't want an apology." Crowley seems to shrink, and Aziraphale wonders if he's about to have to argue with his own child on Crowley's behalf. "Not from you."

_Oh._ Aziraphale supposes he should have expected that. It was, after all, him who handed the infant Jorael - then unnamed and defenceless - to Heaven and failed to even keep an eye on their progress as they grew.

"I'm-"

"Nor you," Jorael insisted. "Your story hasn't changed. It took me more than a year to get clearance to return to Earth, and you're still saying the same thing. Even the parts you think make you sound bad." They frown. "Exactly the same."

"It's the truth," Aziraphale tells them, and Jorael nods.

"I asked Gabriel again. How I came to be. And he told me it didn't matter who my parent was, what they'd done. Because they hadn't had a chance to corrupt me. Yet another story - that's all it was, wasn't it? Stories. You're telling me the truth."

"Perhaps…" Aziraphale hasn't made excuses for Gabriel in some time, now, and he's out of practice. "Perhaps, in his own way, he was trying to protect you. Perhaps he came to love you, over time."

"He's barely spoken to me, especially since the Great Plan fell apart." Jorael shakes their head. _"Love is not love, which alters when it alteration finds."_

 _"Or bends with the remover to remove,"_ Crowley continues, "I gave him that one."

"Did you?" Aziraphale hadn't known that, though admittedly half of London had contributed suggestions to Shakespeare's sonnets at one point or another. "How funny. I gave him _it is an ever-fixed mark,_ and the bit about the tempests."

"I was thinking of a different kind of love, I think," Crowley admits, "I was thinking about the princes, and looking after them not changing what we'd lost in-"

He cuts himself off, but Jorael is smarter than that; they tilt their head curiously, keen eyes fixed on Crowley.

"Part of that beautiful sonnet… is about me?"

"Er. Yeah. I, er, I might have helped with the _even to the edge of doom_ bit, too, but that was mostly for Aziraphale."

"He was _very_ stuck that week, wasn't he?" Aziraphale reminisces fondly, before realising he's excluding their guest. Their _child._ "I'm sorry, what were you saying before?"

"Just… if Gabriel loved me, he wouldn't have been even colder after you stopped Armageddon, would he?"

There's not much to be said to that. After a moment in which they all try frantically to _think_ of something to say to that, Jorael changes the subject.

"You must have had other adventures, besides inspiring sonnets." They shrug. "I don't even know how you met."

"Ah." Aziraphale grins, and he only beams brighter when Crowley rolls his eyes dramatically and slouches down on the sofa, getting comfortable.

"Oh, here we go." It's a deeply fond sort of complaint, the kind that warns Aziraphale that Crowley plans to contribute to the tale by way of sarcastic asides and sly interruptions. He wouldn't have it any other way.

"Well, you see, _he_ was a wily old serpent and _I_ was technically on apple tree duty…"

Jorael listens with a rapt attention that's quite gratifying, after so many centuries of largely being ignored. Actually, in many ways it reminds him of Crowley, again, just another way their child takes after their demonic parent. They're like Aziraphale, too, though; he can see that in the way they seem to glow a little each time Crowley interrupts, the way they laugh at his jokes and generally seem to relax the longer they stay there listening. At one point, they take a sip of their forgotten tea and grimace; Crowley reheats it with a snap of his fingers and Aziraphale realises he's warmed both cups. He knows, better than anyone, that Aziraphale is always forgetting about hot drinks.

"And then, not ten minutes after I'd seen that poor woman safely on her way, on the last horse available, Jesus and his little crowd turned up wanting to make a big entrance. He had to ride in on a donkey! I do feel a little bad about that, but she needed the help."

"Riding in on a horse wouldn't have saved him, angel," Crowley points out, "he was dead not long after that. Bet your bruised woman wasn't - thanks to you."

"Still-"

"Oh, no." Jorael is staring out of the window at the darkening sky. "I should have been back hours ago. I'm sorry, I have to go-"

"But you'll come back?" Aziraphale can't help asking, and Jorael drags him into a clumsy hug.

"As soon as I can. I want to hear about more of your adventures."

"We want to hear about yours," Crowley counters, as he accepts a hug of his own. "Be sssafe." He brushes a kiss over their child's forehead, and Jorael looks as though they might burst into tears. So does Crowley. Aziraphale can feel the emotions welling up inside himself, for that matter.

"You, too." They look as though they have to catch a blessing before it rolls off their tongue, but they manage to keep it in - and then they're gone.

Crowley is in Aziraphale's arms before he's aware of either of them moving, and there's something in the air that feels like hope. They have spent the whole day with their child, and Jorael _believes_ them, and Jorael wants to know them. Wants to visit again soon. Wants to hear their stories.

"Oh, good lord. What on Earth are we supposed to say about Golgotha?"

"Very little," Crowley suggests, "I suppose we should get used to using the phrase _one-night stand_."

"Hm. Very well. Now, what were we doing before we were interrupted earlier?"

"Not sure, angel. Remind me." Crowley smirks, and Aziraphale simply _has_ to kiss him to stop him from being infuriating. From there, it's only a short stumble back to bed.


	29. London, 2025 AD

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think you might like this one.
> 
> I'm making this work a series so you can subscribe for any Crowley POVs that might happen later (though it might be a little while).
> 
> Enjoy!

**London, 2025 AD**

"It hasn't been that long, really," Aziraphale murmurs into the back of Crowley's neck late one night. "I'm sure they're all right."

"Probably," Crowley agrees, "there's probably just a waiting list or something. For Earth visits. Not a free-for-all like Downstairs."

"Hm." Aziraphale can see the logic of that, of course. "You don't think they're in trouble?"

"I don't expect so." Crowley turns over so she can look him in the eyes. "What's brought this on, angel?"

"What if they need our help?"

"They've made it this far without us. We just have to trust them."

Aziraphale must still look doubtful, because Crowley's expression becomes even softer as she looks at him.

"Angel, I know it's hard. I worry, too. But we can't- it's not going to do anyone any good. Worrying about it."

"No," Aziraphale admits, "but I can't seem to clear my mind."

"Let me help," Crowley offers, and before Aziraphale can ask what she means, she's casting the sheets off of her body and slipping her nightdress over her head.

Aziraphale's mind goes blank, and when it restarts all he can think of is Crowley. It'll probably go to her head, the way he's drawn to her as if by a strong magnet, his lips finding her lips, her neck, her chest. He can never have enough of Crowley.

"Can you believe we used to go centuries without this?" He groans against her collarbone, and she laughs. Sex still isn't the most important part of their relationship, but it's certainly not an unpleasant aspect.

"Patience of an angel," she teases, "think how _I_ felt."

"Fuck patience," Aziraphale snaps, just to see her grin at his swearing. 

"Fuck _me,_ " she counters, and he shakes his head.

"No, my love. If you don't mind, I'd rather make love to you."

"Same thing," Crowley mutters, but he knows she understands. "Whatever you're going to do, just do it now. I feel like I'm going to fall apart if you don't."

"You fall apart when I _do,_ " Aziraphale argues, and sets about proving it, slowly and deliberately, all night.

The following afternoon, they go for a walk in St James's Park. Crowley complains lightly about aches Aziraphale knows full well she could just miracle away, and when he offers to take care of it for her, she shakes her head.

"Don't you dare. Souvenirs." It's ridiculous, and hopelessly endearing, and Aziraphale is about to tease her about it when there’s an almighty crash of thunder, humans turning their faces upwards in shock to stare into the cloudless sky.

Aziraphale and Crowley don’t look up; they look towards the bookshop. There’s another crack, and this time it comes from nearer Crowley’s flat.

“That’s not a good landing,” Crowley mutters grimly, and then something crashes into pavement at the other end of the path they’ve been wandering. It’s no surprise, really, to look at the figure scrambling to its feet and realise that it’s Jorael; on some level, Aziraphale has been expecting them since the moment he heard that first clap of thunder.

They rarely run, Aziraphale and Crowley, but they run now, hurrying to meet their child. Jorael whirls to face them, eyes wide, and relaxes when they see who it is.

“I’m in trouble.”

“What’s-?”

“Heaven. They restricted the Earth visits, said it was against the Great Plan to keep sending angels down there too often. Put the Earth Studies programme on hold, since Earth’s not supposed to exist any more. Said it was dangerous. I asked Gabriel for one more trip, since I was born here- and he revoked my Earth privileges altogether.”

“Then how-?”

“Do you know,” Jorael interjects, conversationally, “the Quartermaster went a little mad after the War that Wasn’t? Started telling everyone who’d listen about the angel who sent _himself_ back down to Earth, without even a body, said he was going to become a demon?”

“Ah,” Aziraphale manages weakly.

“My corporation’s mine, so I didn’t have to worry about possessing anyone - I realised there was only one angel who could have done that, if he wasn’t really as mad as everyone thought. And if my- my father- could do it-”

“Jorael,” Crowley interrupts, her voice low and urgent. “Did anyone see you?”

“Oh. Yeah.” They look a little ashamed of themself, but there’s a hint of defiant pride in their posture that reminds Aziraphale of standing trial in Hell. “Yeah, Gabriel noticed. I might, possibly, have shouted at him before I-”

“Don’t sell yourself short,” a deceptively calm voice interrupts. “You _definitely_ shouted some things before you _threw yourself out of Heaven.”_

Aziraphale turns to find Gabriel standing just a few metres away, smiling that cold smile he always wears when he’s being especially awful.

“I-” Jorael’s eyes widen. “I just wanted to visit- am I going to Fall?”

“Well, yeah,” Gabriel tells them, casual as anything, and waits a beat for Jorael to panic before continuing. “Unless you come back _right now_. Then I can try to pull a few strings. Since Earth has such an unusual claim on you. But you’re never coming back.”

“But- my parents-”

“Oh, yeah. That was the strange thing, when you were shouting. You kept talking about how your parent’s on Earth. It makes sense, I suppose. You’ve been exposed to Aziraphale’s strange thinking, and it’s turned your head.”

“He _is_ my parent, isn’t he?” Jorael demands, and Aziraphale holds Gabriel’s contemptuous gaze so the archangel won’t notice Crowley stepping backwards, away from their child. Trying not to taint them by association with her. It makes Aziraphale feel ill, but he doesn’t dare say anything. Their child has a choice, it seems, still has the option of returning to Heaven, and he’s not going to interfere with that. Crowley never made that decision for _him_ , after all, no matter how much she must have wanted to tear him from Heaven’s cruel grip.

“The Almighty sent you through him, and he gave you to Heaven. And that’s all it takes for him to win your loyalty away from Heaven? You should be thanking me.”

“For letting me stay in Heaven?”

“For taking you from him in the first place. Imagine how much more of a failure you’d have been if I’d let the traitor raise you.”

Aziraphale’s fists clench involuntarily; nearby, he senses Crowley lurching forward a couple of inches, intent on violence - but their child is faster than either of them. Faster, even, than the Archangel Gabriel, as Jorael takes three swift steps forwards and punches him right in the face. Aziraphale’s no expert, but he vaguely registers that Gabriel’s nose is broken, the archangel howling in pain as he stumbles backwards.

It’s extremely satisfying to watch, but it’s also terrifying. Jorael takes a step backwards, then another, apparently realising the danger they’re now in, and Crowley reaches out to rest a steadying hand on their elbow. Their child will never be unprotected, not while Aziraphale and Crowley exist. Aziraphale shifts closer to his family as Gabriel straightens up, snapping his fingers to clean the blood from his face.

“You’ll pay for that-” But Jorael’s parents step forward as one, taking up positions between their child and the furious archangel, and Gabriel falters.

“Hello,” Crowley grins. “Remember me? Michael must have mentioned me, not every day you meet a Holy Waterproof demon.”

“And naturally, you’ll remember what happened when you tried to burn me alive in Hellfire,” Aziraphale adds. There’s a gasp from behind him, and he realises Jorael didn’t know about that. Oh, well. There will be time to tell them that story later. They will have all the time in the world. “I’m not sure you want to interfere with _any_ of us,” he concludes. 

Gabriel hesitates, but then he sneers. “What sort of sorry excuse for a demon would face down Heaven for an angel’s child?”

“Oh, a terrible one,” Crowley admits cheerfully.

“A _good_ one,” Aziraphale insists.

“My mother,” Jorael whispers, almost too quietly to be heard, and then they take a deep breath. “I think I’ll stay with my parents, thank you, Archangel Gabriel. In case that wasn’t clear.”

For a moment, it’s like watching the ancient computer in the back room of the bookshop start up. Aziraphale can almost hear the cogs whirring in the archangel’s head.

“Your parents.” There’s a strange sense of deja vu as they smile and wave, and Crowley’s grin only grows as Gabriel reaches the inevitable conclusion. “You’re _their_ child. Both of them.”

“Oh, didn’t I mention that?” Aziraphale sighs. “I really am _so_ absent-minded.”

For a moment, it feels as if they’ve won, and then Gabriel laughs.

“Well, that’s just perfect. Perhaps you can prepare your child for what comes next.” He smirks at Crowley, then turns to Jorael. “Enjoy your Fall.”

There’s a flash, and a crack, and Gabriel is gone. Around them, people in the park begin applauding, astonished by the quality of special effects involved in the strange piece of street theatre playing out before them. And Crowley turns to gather Jorael into her arms.

“I’m going to Fall,” they whisper, and Crowley only holds them tighter.

“It’s bad. But you’ll survive. And I’ll come to you. I’ll Fall _with_ you, if I can. I won't leave you there.”

Aziraphale watches in horror, waiting for the first hint of smoke or sulphur, afraid that he’s about to see his child burst into flame and plummet from grace. He watches Crowley wrap herself ever more protectively around their child, and knows he can’t help in the same way. He watches, and watches.

“Dear,” he ventures tentatively, “don’t you think this is taking rather a long time?”

“Sorry, angel, did you want us to hurry it up?” Crowley snaps, but he ignores her tone because she’s obviously as terrified as he is.

“I mean, my dears, that if Jorael was going to Fall for what was, frankly, a _phenomenal_ left hook, I think they would have done by now. Don’t you?”

“Oh.” Crowley unwraps herself a fraction, peering anxiously into Jorael’s eyes as if searching for signs of a fever, or perhaps signs of snakelike pupils. There are none. “Yeah, probably.”

“Then I suggest we go home and see what happens.”

“But- I _punched an archangel._ ” Jorael’s fingers are still curled tightly into the fabric of Crowley’s shirt, their eyes wide. “I lost faith-”

“In the Almighty?” Aziraphale asks gently, and Jorael’s eyes grow impossibly wider.

“No! No, just in… in Gabriel.”

“And, despite what he might think, he is _not_ God. I think you’ll be just fine, dear. _I_ haven’t Fallen, after all.”

“Blatant favouritism, is what it is,” Crowley grumbles, but she looks more relieved than Aziraphale has ever seen her. “Come on, you can stay at my place, if you like. I’m sure it can muster up a spare room - no point trying to add one to the bookshop, it’ll only fill up with books before you get near it.”

“I can stay with you?”

“For as long as you want,” Aziraphale confirms, because Crowley’s flat is his too, now, and the bookshop is just as much Crowley’s. “Let’s go home.”

Crowley takes Jorael’s hand, and Jorael takes Aziraphale’s, and they all walk towards the park gates together.

“So am _I_ immune to Hellfire and Holy Water?”

 _“No,”_ their parents reply in stern unison. Jorael laughs, and they smile back. For the first time, they have a chance to be a family.

It’s time to go home.


	30. Fulking, 2034 AD

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this is late - I guess I was a little reluctant to bring it to a close, after all this time!
> 
> Remember to subscribe to the series if you want to know when the Crowley POVs go up.
> 
> Enjoy!

**Fulking, 2034 AD**

Aziraphale is sitting in the garden, reading, when Crowley drags himself out of bed in the early afternoon. 

"Morning, angel." 

Aziraphale accepts a kiss, then laughs. "Not _quite_ morning. You seemed like you needed the sleep."

"I feel better for it," Crowley admits, "all those shapeshifting lessons wiped me out."

"I'm sorry, dear. You did have two very demanding students."

" _You_ were fine. You weren't the one pestering for demonstrations of all the different sizes of snake I've ever been."

"They were excited."

"I know, and I'm glad. But I'm taking it easy for a while."

"Very wise. I think Jorael overestimated their own energy, too, for what it's worth. No sign of them yet today."

"Well, I'm glad they have my appreciation of sleep. Shall we pop round and take them out for dinner later?" Aziraphale nods, pleased with the notion. "What are you reading?"

They spend a lazy afternoon in the garden, Aziraphale reading in between bouts of watching Crowley pottering around, hissing threats at any plant he feels isn't meeting his standards. Aziraphale had been alarmed by Crowley's approach to gardening, when he'd first encountered it, but now he looks on fondly as the demon tenderly removes dead leaves and untwists stems, keeping up a menacing monologue all the while.

"Crowley," he calls, when he can't contain himself any longer, "I think it's probably time to go."

"Course, angel. Let me just clean myself up." He snaps his fingers, and Aziraphale nods.

"I'll fetch the cake. I had to occupy my morning somehow."

"You cooked, with me sleeping upstairs? I could have been killed-"

"Hush, you. I'm a perfectly capable baker." He grimaces. "A few minor miracles might have occurred in the process."

"Well, I'm sure it's perfect. Do you want a hand?"

"No, no. You wait here."

He walks up the path towards their cottage, their refuge from the world. Nestled in the rolling hills of the South Downs, a stone's throw from a channel locals call Devil's Dyke, it's truly idyllic - and it's just theirs. He and Crowley have their own place at last, a place to be _together_ for once in their long existences. It's nothing like Crowley's old flat in Mayfair, or even his own bookshop - it is theirs, equally and always. And they've spent the last few years exploring new hobbies; they've both taken to trying to cook, with some success, though each has their own strengths and weaknesses. Aziraphale has gone back to collecting snuffboxes, and started tinkering with music boxes, too; Crowley has taken up painting.

Jorael declined their offer of a room in the cottage, upon its purchase, and although they were disappointed, they understood. Their child is all grown up, now, and needs their own space, their own life. They have never been dependent on Aziraphale and Crowley, and they're old enough for that not to change. They can and do take care of themself.

Aziraphale picks up the cake - marble cake, a perfect melding of light and dark, with cream-coloured buttercream spread generously onto the outside - and carries it back out to where Crowley waits.

"It looks amazing," Crowley tells him, and Aziraphale has to bat his hand away.

"Stick your finger in this icing and I _will_ smite you, foul fiend."

"You'd never," Crowley tells him contentedly, "you love me too much."

"Mm, for my sins." He presses a quick kiss to Crowley's cheek, careful not to crush the cake, and steps back with a smile. "Shall we go?"

They walk down the garden together, between beds of quivering flowers and shivering herbs, until they reach the gate at the bottom. They open it and pass through into somebody else's garden, a place where the plants don't tremble as Crowley passes.

"That pear tree should be flowering by now," he growls under his breath, and Aziraphale chuckles fondly.

"You know you're not allowed to shout at these ones."

"But they're-"

"Boundaries, dearest." He pats Crowley's shoulder in reassurance. "I'm sure it will all be fine in the end. Sometimes things grow just fine when they're left to themselves."

"Hm. It doesn't mean they couldn't use the help."

They reach the back door of the cottage that backs onto theirs, and Crowley knocks firmly.

"Come in!"

"You shouldn't just let people in," Crowley grumbles as they step into the kitchen, and Jorael laughs.

"Iaoth’s just left. And who else would be able to get past you two and reach my back door?"

Crowley grouses a little more, but allows himself to be embraced while Aziraphale sets the cake down on the table. Then it's Aziraphale's turn to be hugged.

“I made the cake myself,” he warns, “but it should be all right.”

“Well, you’ll have to help me eat it,” Jorael insists, “both of you. We leave tomorrow, after all!”

“Ah, yes. Well, I’ll help. Whether your father will eat it is another matter-”

“Since it’s you,” Crowley concedes, and Aziraphale’s not sure which of them he means.

“Are you excited for our trip to Anata?”

“Very. I can’t believe I’m going to get to see the place I was born, after all these years.”

“It’s not quite the same,” Crowley points out, “you won’t be able to see the actual stable or anything. Doubt I could find the site, even.”

“No, but-” Jorael stops, suddenly wary. “Are you going to be all right, Dad? It’s not going to bring up bad memories?”

“Oh. No, of course not. I’ll be fine. I’m just a bit nervous, that’s all.”

“We don’t have to go, if you don’t want to-”

“We’re going,” Crowley tells them firmly, “it’ll be a nice adventure. Besides, it’s not every day you turn two millennia old, is it?”

They sit together and eat cake, the three of them, long into the night, and Aziraphale thinks of the surprises that await them all over the next few days. Of their upcoming adventures in a new place overlaid with old memories, of Jorael’s best friend Iaoth secretly planning to meet them there in two days’ time, finally ready to take that one big step away from Heaven.

Crowley shoots him a secretive smile across the table, and he smiles back. They have plans, after this little family holiday, plans that might make their little family just a little bigger. They’ll talk to Jorael about it some other time; this is _their_ time, their 2000th birthday, and there’s no question of overshadowing it or upstaging them.

“I’m glad you found us,” Crowley tells Jorael, several glasses of wine later, “it tore me apart to lose you.”

“And me,” Aziraphale agrees, “I missed you. And Gabriel wouldn’t tell me anything.”

“You two should probably sober up before you start sobbing,” Jorael teases, “but I’m glad, too. I’m glad we found each other.”

And when the sun rises the next day, it finds the three of them standing together on Jorael’s doorstep, ready to take on the next two thousand years as a family.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for joining me on this journey, I hope you've enjoyed it!
> 
> EDIT: the wonderful [tweedfeather](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tweedfeather/pseuds/tweedfeather) has created some [beautiful drawings](https://tweedfeather.tumblr.com/post/627534862382956544/i-read-blood-and-straw-by-sameoldsorceress) based on this story, and I am just completely blown away by them. Please do check them out!


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